Catholic Priest 



AND 



SCIENTISTS. 



Rev. J. W. VAHEY, 

Pastor of St. Lawrence's Church, Elk horn, Wis. 



/& 



V 




7 



NEW YORK, CINCINNATI AND ST. LOUIS: 

BENZIGER BROTHERS, 

Printers to the Holy A£osto.Uc See. 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 






•puiilisfjctr toiti) tije Approbation of 
Most Reverend M. HEISS, D.D., 

Archbishop of Milwaukee. 



Copyright, 1883, by Benziger Brothers. 



PREFACE. 



Under the following circumstances I introduce 
this book, entitled " A Catholic Priest and Scien- 
tists," to the public. 

During the winter of 1878, while residing in 
Milwaukee, I was informed that scientists expressed 
a desire to hold a discussion with me on the eter- 
nal being of matter, the non-existence of God and 
revealed religion. Under the impulse of the mo- 
ment I assented ; but after having consulted Arch- 
bishop Henni, now deceased, declined from a con- 
viction that with men who rejected the authority 
of divine revelation it would be folly to argue. 
The challenging party then concluded " that I 
feared to meet them in open debate, owing to the 
inherent truth of their systems which would clearly 
establish the eternal being of matter, disprove the 
existence of a First Cause, the Blessed Trinity, 
and Christianity, which were purely mythical. " 

Although I was aware of the force of the adage 
Noli contendere verbis, ad nihil enim utile est, and 
although I was aware of the fact that it is folly to 
argue with atheists on things ineffable which sur- 
pass human thought, yet, lest my unwillingness to 
meet these men might promote error and injure 
the cause of truth, I consented, on condition that 
two reporters would be admitted; but this they 
declined on the plea that, until some future time, 
" they did not wish to give their arguments pub- 
licity." 

After the discussion had come to an end, I told 
my scientists that I would deliver two or more 
lectures on the propositions argued and publish a 



4 Preface. 

synopsis of them in the Milwaukee Sentinel. I did 
so, and from the kind manner in which they were 
received by Catholics and non-Catholics I was 
induced, at the request of a few friends, to put 
them in book form. 

From this it will be seen that I did not com- 
mence the work from intellectual choice, but from 
necessity. The character I bear as a priest of the 
Catholic Church admonished me. that I must be 
ready at all times to give an account of my faith, and 
defend the Church of my baptism against the at- 
tacks of vauntful, subtle atheists, whose portentous 
systems dazzle intellects that are non-illumined by 
the light of pure reason and divine faith. 

The extracts I have taken from the writings of 
the Fathers, to which I had access through the 
goodness of Archbishop Henni, replete with phi- 
losophy founded on nature, with theology based 
on God, which prove Him to be the Primary 
Cause of all things, must please the reader, who 
will contrast them with the wild, vague assertions 
of my disputants, which I dare not give in full 
because they breathed a spirit of blasphemy. 

For the benefit of my less learned readers, I 
have, wherever the subject would admit, avoided 
the use of technical language and employed the 
popular. 

Although my intellect, from severe application, 
was once familiar with the subjects treated in this 
work, yet from the multitude of things that crossed 
my brain, connected with the discharge of my 
duty, I found the dogmatic and historic structure 
of my work difficult, which, I hope, is within the 
teaching of the Church. Should it not be, I shall 
be among the first to condemn it. 

Elkhorn, Wis., August 10, 1882. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction 7 

CHAPTER I. 

Is Matter eternal ? Did Primary Matter possess the Inherent 
Energy to form our Solar System and every other in the 
Immensity of Space ? 13 

CHAPTER II. 

Is the Catholic Church built on the Bible ? Can the Approved 
Scriptures be convicted of Falsehood ? The First Day 
of Creation — was it a Solar Day ? Did Moses call it 
such ? 25 

CHAPTER III. 

Is the Moon a Great Light ? Could God act with Cruelty and 
Injustice ? Could the Earth's Motion be stopped with- 
out causing its Destruction ? Are Miracles impossible ? 36 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Creation of Adam. His Supernatural Gifts. His Diso- 
bedience. A Promise of Redemption was the Only Hope 
that cheered him and the Hebrews in their Vicissitudes.- 
Was Evil inherent in Adam's Will ? Is Evil an Entity? 
In what is the Soul like to God? Did Adam create the 
Soul of his Offspring? What was the Source of Evil? 
And what are its Consequences ? 4° 

CHAPTER V. 
The Birth of Christ. The Moral Aspect of Society when 
Christ was born. Was the Body of Christ formed in- 
dependent of or outside the Natural Order of Genera- 
tion ? Are there Three Gods in the Blessed Trinity ? Is 



vi Contents. 

PAGB 

the Blessed Virgin no better than any other Woman ? Do 
Catholics pay her the Worship that belongs to God ?. . . 62 

CHAPTER VI. 

Did our Blessed Lord found the Catholic Church ? Can the 

Church teach Error ? By what Marks can she be known ? 107 

CHAPTER VII. 

Does the Blessed Eucharist contain, really and truly, the 
Body and Blood, the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus 
Christ under the Appearance of Bread and Wine ? 185 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Is there a Purgatory or Middle State ? 208 

CHAPTER IX. 

Did the Catholic Church organize her Priesthood ? Did she 
commission them to preach the Gospel ? Does she de- 
mand of Society to receive them as Demigods ? Are 
they in their Official Capacity no better than Laymen ? 
Are they inferior to the Laity in Education and Mo- 
rality ? 222 

CHAPTER X. 

Are the Ceremonies of the Catholic Church Incentives to 

Idolatry ? 242 

CHAPTER XI. 

Is the Catholic Church the Enemy of Science ? Did she im- 
prison Galileo ? 253 

CHAPTER XII. 

Is the Catholic Church the Enemy of Civil Liberty? Did she 
sanction or promote the Massacre of the Huguenots on 
St. Bartholomew's Day ? 260 

Conclusion 269 



INTRODUCTION. 



That our age is drifting down the current of 
"free-thought" with great impetuosity is a fact 
that cannot be denied ; that this, which is one of 
the many results of heresy, tests the dogmas of 
revealed religion in the crucible of finite reason 
vitiated by error, and rejects whatever it does not 
comprehend, is a fact also that cannot be denied. 
From the inability of this criterion to apprehend 
the source of matter, or to find its way through 
the complex ocean of physical immensity, it re- 
jects the existence of God, the divine origin of re- 
vealed religion, and boldly asserts that " brute 
matter always was." 

That men who call themselves scientists should 
deliberately shroud with the darkness of error 
the reason given to them by their Creator, by the 
exercise of which they could contemplate Him in 
His works ad extra, is truly sad. It is also sad to 
find that this class of humanity have no lamp of 
faith burning in their souls, no temple erected to 
God in their intellects, in which they could hold 
prayerful converse with Him. Being strangers to 
the light of pure reason and divine faith, they re- 



8 Introduction. 

ject the supernatural, and execrate truthful argu- 
ment from reason and the holy Scriptures, ad- 
vanced through motives of charity, to dispel their 
mental darkness, thus verifying the words of the 
Psalmist; " Tota die verba mea abominabantur."* 

On politics, medicine, jurisprudence, questions 
of trade, the mutual affinity particles of matter 
have for each other, and a thousand other knotty 
questions, these men reason correctly, but on God, 
His attributes, the Blessed Trinity, the human 
soul, and revealed religion, they speak irrationally. 
These subjects so perplex and startle them, are so 
enigmatic to their intellects, that they fly into an 
ebullition of anger whenever they are mentioned. 
While mentally agitated, these " literary lights" 
assert that a " mythical Christianity incorporated 
into its heterogeneous system belief in the exist- 
ence of God, in the Blessed Trinity, and the neces- 
sity of obeying moral law, to stultify the human 
mind and science. ,, 

Now, in sober thought, does not this wild doc- 
trine open the door of the human heart to the 
admission of every vice? Do not its teachings 
weaken and undermine society ? Do not its teach- 
ings paralyze the religious, truthful, moral, politi- 
cal, and social order? Do we not, in proof of this, 

*Ps. iv.,6. 



Introduction. 9 

see crime succeeding crime, as billow on billow, 
without being shocked at its enormity, owing to 
its frequency? To what source but to this can 
we attribute the many suicides, foeticides, homo- 
cides, connubial infidelity, theft, bribery, perjury, 
arson, and the general depravity of society ? It is 
true that evil passion is deeply rooted in the hu- 
man heart, and, therefore, that man is prone to it ; 
but although this is the case, yet it can be ren- 
dered subject to reason by the grace of God. 

If this religious and moral degeneracy were con- 
fined to the illiterate, we might plead their ignor- 
ance in extenuation of their blindness ; but when 
found to exist in those who largely constitute intel- 
ligent society, then indeed we become apprehen- 
sive for the future of this great country. 

Nowadays we meet with men who consider 
themselves stars of the first magnitude in the fir- 
mament of science, who hold offices of trust, enjoy 
the emoluments accruing from the learned profes- 
sions, who are EDUCATORS of the youthful mind, 
whose hope of future reward soars no higher than 
the instinct of animals. When remonstrated with 
for arriving at this dreary conclusion, they reply 
"that science forced it upon their intelligence." 
But this is false, because, as God is the source of 
science, it must have truth for its object. True 
science only accepts what is revealed in the super- 



io Introduction. 

natural order by eternal Truth, and what is defi- 
nitely discovered in the natural through the light 
of pure reason. False science rejects the super- 
natural, sneers at dogmatic propositions which 
are not founded on speculation, but are the re- 
sult of divine revelation, accepts in the natural 
order discoveries plausibly suggested through 
mere speculation, and therefore incorporates the 
dreams and emptiness of atheism into its faith 
which are demonstrable to absurdity. 

The term science, according to its modern ac- 
ceptation, is confined to knowledge of the natural 
order, and, like modern history, must be carefully 
examined before its conclusions can be accepted 
as truthful. This follows from the fact that this 
domain for the last hundred years has been inoc- 
ulated with error by men whose hatred for God 
and revealed religion knew no bounds. Of the 
truthfulness of their theories they entertained no 
doubt ; they fancied that everything in the cosmos 
was unveiled to their eyes, and that nothing was 
left obscure to their mental vision ; they therefore 
sat in judgment on the existence of God and re- 
vealed religion, and rendered a verdict that " there 
is no God, no religion divinely founded, and that 
everything in nature is the product of eternal 
matter acting on matter/' 

Here it may be instructive to my less learned 



Introduction. 1 1 

readers to express the value of the term scientist, 
in order to understand clearly its meaning. Web- 
ster defines the word to mean " a savant ; one 
versed in science." Although this is etymologi- 
cally true, yet it does not express the modern mean- 
ing of the term. A scientist is one who argues 
unintelligibly on questions he is ignorant of, who 
asserts without caring to know on what he bases 
his assertion ; who ignores eternal truth, ridicules 
revealed religion, its laws and precepts ; who as- 
serts that the human mind evolved from matter, 
like light, heat, and magnetism ; who turns away in 
disgust from metaphysical science which searches 
into the ultimate ground of all being, and settles 
down in the scepticism his conjectures evoked. 
To his mind religion is an empty term ; its institu- 
tion he ascribes to crafty men whose object for self- 
ish purposes was to degrade human reason. The 
indwelling of the Holy Ghost in revealed religion 
he cannot apprehend because the non-existence of 
God appears evident to his intellect darkened by 
error, and therefore "with the fool says in his 
heart, There is no God."* 

* Ps. lii. i. 



CHAPTER I. 

IS MATTER ETERNAL? DID PRIMARY MATTER 
POSSESS THE INHERENT ENERGY TO FORM OUR 
SOLAR SYSTEM AND EVERY OTHER IN THE IM- 
MENSITY OF SPACE? 

The proof advanced by my physicist to sustain 
the affirmative of the foregoing questions is as fol- 
lows : 

He said that "at some inconceivable time cha- 
otic matter or igneous fluidity, which always was 
and occupied infinite space, threw off our solar 
system and every other in space, through the 
agency of nebulous rings which condensed ; that 
matter drawn towards this condensed mass from 
opposite directions, and at various degrees of 
velocity, caused a rotary movement to take place, 
through which the accumulated matter assumed 
form ; that as this mass gradually contracted and 
assumed circular form, ring after ring was added 
to it till the planet was formed, and in this way 
the work of construction continued until every 
body in space was formed and perfected." 

As this theory is evidently erroneous owing to 
its deification of matter and its denial of the exist- 



14 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

ence of a First Cause, I will not examine it in its 
various ramifications, and therefore I will be rather 
sketchy than exhaustive in its refutation. 

That the human mind be enabled to apprehend 
the existence of a First Cause, and dilate truth- 
fully and profitably on chaotic matter, the forma- 
tion of solar systems, the universe and its various 
orders of entities, it must be illumined by the 
light of pure reason, actively united with true 
religion ; otherwise its speculations will be envel- 
oped in darkness, and therefore repulsive to the 
instincts of true science and religion. Modern 
scientists may speculate on the cosmos till the 
crack of doomsday ; they will neither understand 
the chain that links together its forces nor the 
harmony existing between it and these, if their in- 
tellects be not illumined by this twofold light. 

If matter were eternal it would be imbued with 
the qualities that are inherent in an eternal being ; 
but as these are repugnant to matter it follows 
that it is not eternal. Now since simplicity, infin- 
ity, and absolute independence of every other 
being are qualities that belong to and are inherent 
in a self-existing being, we cannot affirm them of 
matter. It follows, therefore, that matter is not a 
self-existing being and is not eternal. These qual- 
ities must exist in a self-existing being, for the rea- 
son that it has not its essence from any other 



Is Matter Eternal? 15 

being, but from itself. It has essence from itself 
because, by necessity, it is the esse itself. Now, 
the esse itself must be possessed of these qualities ; 
if it were not it would not be the esse itself, but a 
limited, compound, divisible entity, and therefore 
not the esse itself. Why? Because a limited, 
compound, divisible entity is confined to being of 
a limited kind. For example, human being differs 
from animal, which is confined to mere sensitive 
being, and is the only endowment of irrational, 
sentient creatures. 

The esse itself must be simple because it is inca- 
pable of increase or diminution ; if it were suscep- 
tible of these it would be confined to limits, inas- 
much as it would admit of increase. It is incapa- 
ble of diminution because if diminished it would 
be limited ; therefore, then, since it can neither 
admit of increase nor diminution it is simple. The 
esse itself is absolutely independent of all other 
entities ; if it were not it would be subject to their 
influence, would lose or receive, and therefore be 
limited. The qualities that exist in the esse itself 
do not exist in matter which is divisible and there- 
fore not simple. As matter is subject to division, 
is sensible, is circumscribed by limits because 
within a definite plane, it is not infinite, but limited 
and dependent. If matter be eternal it must be 
infinite in its collective entity ; but as the whole 



1 6 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

contains its parts, the parts so contained must be 
infinite also. Every blade of grass, grain of sand, 
drop of water, and particle of matter is eternal 
and infinite, which argues an absurdity ; therefore 
matter is not eternal, but is an entity of time. 

The term " infinite" which my physicist applies 
to " space" I cannot accept in the sense in which he 
applies it because it is a mere subjective negative, 
which by common consent is changed into an 
objective affirmative to aid the weakness of the 
human intellect, which cannot assign limits to 
space owing to its immensity. In mathematics, 
especially in the higher, under restriction it is 
" introduced in order to compare two things natu- 
rally incommensurate." In describing the bodies 
in space that form the extended cosmos, or the 
world of externality, which is but dimly known 
beyond our own terrestrial confines, we use the 
term " infinite," which, logically speaking, cannot 
be applied to any being except to a self-existing 
one. Although we can form no idea of the shape 
of space nor of anything which could constitute 
its boundary, and although the energy of human 
thought can travel with more than lightning speed 
from body to body, from system to system, through 
the immensity of space quintillions of miles, yet we 
cannot say that space is infinite. There is but one 
Infinite — God, who created and rules the universe. 



Is Matter Eternal? 17 

It is a fact that must be admitted, because true, 
that fluids unobstructed by extraneous force are 
obedient to the law of gravity, and therefore 
form a quiescent or motionless plane. We know 
from observation that when the force which 
causes the upheaving of the ocean's billows 
ceases to act the ocean assumes a quiescent and 
uniform surface. Now, in the absence of ex- 
traneous force, how could " igneous fluidity " 
propel these rings from its bosom and send them 
on a formative mission ? To assert that the force 
which gave these rings a formative activity 
existed inherent in chaotic matter is to contra- 
dict physical science, which tells us that a body 
at rest will remain at rest forever unless it is put 
in motion by a force external to it. The instincts 
of my intellect tell me that if I want to put a 
body at rest in motion I must use muscular con- 
traction, which gives me the certitude that the 
force I use abides in me and not in the inert body 
I put in motion. It follows, therefore, that there 
was no formative energy inherent in " igneous 
fluidity." 

But the fallacy of this unscientific theory does 
not end here. * 

If these " nebulous rings" formed our solar sys- 
tem and every other in space, independent of 
Designing Reason, or of Omnipotent Power, how 



1 8 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

is it that there is not one single planet or satellite 
rotating in space under the influence of blind 
chance in the wide range of explorable astron- 
omy ? If the planets and satellites were projected 
in their orbits by these nebulous rings with a 
greater or less degree of tangential force, they 
would either travel outward from their orbits or 
fall into their respective primaries. But as no such 
consequence takes place, the conclusion must be 
accepted that they were not formed by nebulous 
rings, but by Almighty God, who created them, 
poised them in space, and linked them together 
by a chain of natural forces which He framed for 
the establishment of their unity and harmony. 

As the terms First Cause, Designing Reason, 
and Omnipotent Power are apparently meaning- 
less to the intellect of my friend, he calls upon 
me to prove the existence of God. Having his 
spiritual welfare at heart, I most willingly comply 
with his demand. 

Of the essence of God I have no knowledge 
because a finite being cannot fathom the Infinite 
owing to an infinite chasm, which can never be 
bridged, that separates the former from an ade- 
quate knowledge of the latter. Although this is 
the case, yet I know from natural reason that 
there is a God who, " in the beginning," created 
the complex universe and the various orders of 



The Existence of God. 1 9 

sentient entities in it. My soul, being created by 
the Almighty, bears His image, which is light to 
it by which it can see that the Author of its being 
exists. Through this light my soul obtains an 
apprehension of God, acquires a certitude of His 
existence, and is attracted towards Him as its 
ultimate good and end. But as this light is purely 
natural, it cannot obtain the possession of my ulti- 
mate end unless the supernatural be united to it. 
As God is infinitely merciful, He united with this 
light supernatural light through which rational 
creatures who proceeded from Him can know 
Him and return to Him as their ultimate end. 
From the freedom of the human will the creature 
can turn his mind from natural and supernatural 
light in pursuit of the sensible and perishable, and 
forfeit the possession and enjoyment of his ulti- 
mate end — God. 

From metaphysical deductions a priori and a 
posteriori I acquire a certitude that an Infinite, 
Omnipotent God exists who is simple being, and 
exists by force of His essence, outside of whom 
there is no being, in whom is all being, whose es- 
sence every being copies and exists by its partici- 
pation in this essence. As I cannot form an idea 
of any being existing independent or out of God, I 
must accept the inference, because true, that all 
finite beings exist in and through Him ; otherwise 



20 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

they would not be intelligible because of their 
nonentity. But as finite beings cannot be appre- 
hended unless they exist in infinite essence, it fol- 
lows that in apprehending them I also apprehend 
their First Cause — God ; and therefore God ex- 
ists. 

In His activity ad extra I also apprehend God. 
When I see a fabricated thing my mind intuitively 
concludes that it was designed and its parts put to- 
gether by a rational agent. Of this I am certain, 
for I know the thing could not form itself, being 
dead matter, and therefore devoid of formative 
energy. In like manner, when I survey the dome 
of heaven spangled with countless orbs which fill 
and light up the innumerable chambers of stellar 
space and travel through it with overwhelming 
speed, my mind becomes convinced that Omnipo- 
tent Power must have given them being and bal- 
anced them in space, because, like the fabricated 
thing, being dead matter, they could not form 
themselves, poise in space, or give themselves mo- 
tion. Of the truth of this I am further certain 
from the fact that these bodies labor to obtain an 
end which is the object of their motion. Now it is 
self-evident to my intellect that whatever labors to 
obtain an end must be guided in its operations 
either by its own reason or by reason extrinsic to 
it; but as these bodies are not endowed with rea- 



The Existence of God. 2 1 

son, being nothing more than ponderous masses of 
dead matter, it follows, therefore, that in their 
movements to obtain an end they are guided by 
eternal Reason — God ; and therefore He exists. 

As God is infinite truth, it follows that the super- 
natural truths He has revealed are light to the hu- 
man soul by which it can apprehend Him. " In 
thy light we shall see light." * That is, in and 
through the light of revealed religion we shall see 
eternal Light — God. We have already seen that 
the soul, through the light of natural reason, ap- 
prehends uncreated Light, because natural reason, 
imparted to the soul by its Creator, is the reful- 
gence of divine Brightness acting upon and re- 
flected by it, by reason' of which it is said to be 
made after the image of God. " The light of thy 
countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us."f 

From the exercise of pure reason we acquire a 
human certitude that God exists, and from the ex- 
ercise of divine faith we obtain a divine certitude 
that God exists. From this twofold good of na- 
ture and grace which constitutes our natural and 
supernatural state we obtain an apprehension of 
God and the certitude of His existence. 

As divine faith is not based on reason, but is an 
infused virtue, and as man upon his entrance into 

* Ps. xxxv. 10. t P s - i y - 7- 



22 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

this world could neither exercise reason nor elicit 
an act of faith, he required agents to aid him in de- 
veloping the germs of both. We know that to the 
mind of a youth the term science is meaningless. 
Gradually, through instructions, he acquires a 
knowledge of scientific terms and the science itself. 
This mode of instruction forms the basis of human 
certitude which inclines his will to accept the ob- 
ject or thing to be believed as true. In the same 
way the germ of divine faith infused into his soul 
through the grace of baptism develops itself. 
Through the teaching of his parents, preceptor, 
and pastor he accepts revealed truths as object- 
ively certain, and this acceptation imparts to his 
understanding a subjective certitude of them. His 
intellect accepts them as supernatural truths, with- 
out the least fear of being deceived or of being led 
into error. 

As God is infinitely merciful He willed that all 
men would come to a knowledge of Him through 
faith in His existence and the practice of true re- 
ligion. To effect this He provided infallible teach- 
ers in the Old and New Law, in the persons of the 
Patriarchs and Prophets, of Christ and His Apos- 
tles. Christ, who was the Light of lights, the 
Source of all truth, proclaimed to the world the 
truths He received from His heavenly Father, that 
through their light all men might be illumined and 



The Existence of God. 23 

come to a knowledge of Him and His Father. In 
order, then, to diffuse this light and give univer- 
sality to these truths He commenced to expound 
them that mankind might confidently accept them 
as wholly free from error. He founded His Church, 
made her the repository of these truths, and consti- 
tuted His Apostles and their successors till the end 
of time their exponents. Through the teachings 
of this Church and obedience to her laws a knowl- 
edge of supernatural truth is acquired which en- 
ables the soul to know, love, and serve God and 
obtain the end for which it was created. 

" Sir," said my metaphysical disputant, " I cannot 
accept the statement that finite beings cannot be 
apprehended unless they exist in infinite essence. 
Is it not true that sentient beings act under the 
guidance of instinct and reason, which are gifts of 
nature? If this be true, and it is, do they not ex- 
ist by and through nature, which endowed them 
with these gifts, and not in or through divine or 
infinite essence?" 

I can form no conception of entities existing out 
of God, who is the priinum p?'incipium vitce, the 
source of all life. As God is the life-giving prin- 
ciple, every being secundum quid received life from 
Him and enjoys this through and in Him. If He 
were to withdraw His influx from the universe for 
one moment it would cease to be. It is not true 



24 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

that nature endowed sentient beings with instinct 
and reason, because nature is nothing more than 
the aggregate of entities in the cosmos and the 
laws that govern it. The conclusion my friend 
arrives at is false because he attributes to the 
cause effects that did not exist in it. As reason is 
a faculty of the human soul, we must look for its 
root in God and not in inorganic matter. Every 
system in which this is not incorporated must be 
rejected, no matter how plausible it may appear. 



CHAPTER II. 

IS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH BUILT ON THE BIBLE? 
CAN THE APPROVED SCRIPTURES BE CONVICTED 
OF FALSEHOOD? THE FIRST DAY OF CREA- 
TION — WAS IT A SOLAR DAY ? DID MOSES CALL 
IT SUCH? 

My cosmogonist said, " Sir, you must grant that 
your [my] religion is false if the Bible on which it 
is built be false. But the Bible is false when it 
states that the first day of creation was a solar 
day ; that is, that the measure of time contained 
in this day was equal to the measure contained 
in the subsequent days. Now, according to your 
Bible, the sun was not poised in space before the 
fourth day, which was an ordinary day, and there- 
fore did not contain the measure of time the first 
day did. I therefore conclude that your religion 
is false because it is built on a Bible convicted 
of falsehood." 

In all honesty, it seems unfair that men who 
ignore the Bible and the principles it inculcates 
should introduce passages from it difficult of com- 
prehension for the purpose of disproving the 
divine origin of revealed religion. If any part of 



26 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

the holy Scriptures the Catholic Church presents 
to us for acceptance be untruthful, then indeed 
the Bible can be convicted of falsehood ; but as no 
untruthful statement can be found in God's written 
Word, its teachings must be accepted as truthful. 

From the nature of this objection, it will be seen 
that these men were not impelled by a love for 
truth, but by a hatred for religion, to engage in 
this controversy. That this judgment is true will 
be inferred from the objection and those refuted 
in the course of this work. The system of these 
men, as far as we have seen, attempts to sweep the 
Almighty out of heaven, and His Church from the 
earth ; but these it will not effect because God is 
immutable and His Church is too deeply rooted 
in Him to be annihilated by the attacks of atheism. 

Every Christian is bound to profess faith in the 
existence of God, who created the universe, all 
things visible and invisible, out of nothing. He is 
not bound to accept this or that system of crea- 
tion, its time or mode, that does not contain ex- 
plicitly or implicitly any dogma of his religion. 
With cold irrational, irreligious systems he has 
nothing to do ; his duty is, through the light of 
reason and faith, to profess belief in the existence 
of a simple, supreme, infinite Being in whom all 
things visible and invisible eternally existed in a 
possible state. 



The Catholic Church not built on the Bible. 27 

The Catholic Church is not " built on the Bible" 
any more than she is on modern science. She is, 
as we shall see in another part of this work, built 
on the God-man, Jesus Christ, who promised to be 
with her all days, and that the gates of hell would 
not prevail against her. Before a single book of 
the New Testament was written she lived by 
faith, enjoyed the spiritual life imparted to her by 
her Divine Founder, and compiled her dogmas 
from His lips. To her children she gives the holy 
Scriptures with the same willingness that she gives 
them the germ of faith at the baptismal font, tell- 
ing them to investigate this vast domain with care 
and caution lest they might construe them con- 
trary to her faith, and thereby establish heretical 
doctrine that would sever them from her com- 
munion. 

The Mosaic system expresses nothing antago- 
nistic to revealed religion, nothing that can re- 
motely cast a doubt on the veracity of the Bible, 
and nothing at variance with true science. It 
describes in few words the formless, unorganized, 
vaporous state of the cosmos after it was created 
by Almighty Power, leaving our intellects to rea- 
son on the billions of millions of years it took the 
agglomoration to condense from a fluid state and 
form worlds under the supervision of the Divine 
Architect. Moses, anticipating the light that pure 



28 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

science would cast on the genesis of the cosmos, 
leaves us a dark, mysterious description of the 
creation of the universe, prophetic in its nature 
inasmuch as it treats of events that took place 
millions upon millions of years before his time. 

" In the beginning God created heaven and 
earth ; and the earth was void and empty, and 
darkness was upon the face of the deep ; and the 
Spirit of God moved over the waters. And God 
said, Be light made. And light was made. And 
God saw the light that it was good ; and He divided 
the light from the darkness, and He called the light 
Day, and the darkness Night ; and there was even- 
ing and morning one day."* 

On this statement of Moses my friend bases his 
charge of falsehood and his consequent rejection 
of the Bible and revealed religion. A close ex- 
amination of the text for a brief period, or rather 
a sketchy yiew of it, will, I hope, disabuse him of 
his erroneous and unscientific conclusion. 

As will be seen, Moses does not call the creation 
of time, of all things visible and invisible, of the 
spiritual and material world, a solar or ordinary- 
day, but one day, to suit the rude and weak intel- 
lects of the Hebrew people. St. Augustin under- 
stood the terms heaven and earth to mean " the 

* Gen. i. 1-5. 



The Teachings of the Bible Truthful. 29 

intelligible, universal, corporeal creation."* The 
term heaven, then, does not mean the visible hea- 
ven, but the aggregate of spiritual intelligences. 
It could not mean the visible heaven because the 
matter of which it was to be composed was as yet 
shapeless and chaotic. This we infer from the 
terms "void and empty'' (inanis et vacua), which 
convey the idea that the Divine activity was with- 
drawn, for the time being, from the formation and 
adornment of the universe. This view St. Augus- 
tin entertains, who says : " It is not absurd to as- 
sert that God created matter first without form, 
and afterwards formed it" * 

u And darkness was on the face of the deep." 
From this the inference can be deduced that 
pitchy, utter darkness, desolation, and silence as 
dead as that on the lunar disc reigned supreme 
in boundless space, which was occupied by un- 
formed, chaotic matter. 

Et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas. " And the 
spirit of God moved upon the waters." Here we 
infer that Omniscient Power assumed formative 
activity by the re-formation of chaotic matter, 
whose inertia was to give way to motion, whose 
parts were to be formed into luminous orbs to 
light the chambers cf unbounded space. Here, 



* Confess, xiii. § 40, 



30 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

too, we infer, and truthfully, that the grand, com- 
plex universe evolved from Almighty activity, 
which had its root in the wisdom of the Divine 
Will, and its inception in the energy of that Will. 

But were the waters over which the spirit of 
God moved real waters? They were not because 
chaotic or primary matter that entered into the 
formation of the universe was vague, hollow, and 
empty. Then how are we to understand the 
term waters? By assuming that Moses used the 
word to suit the comprehension of the Hebrews. 
Unbounded space, filled with cosmical vapors, 
appeared to his vision as an unfathomable deep, 
and to convey his idea to the Hebrews he called 
the attenuated matter water. To convey an idea 
of the extension of aether in the regions of space 
we often say that a boundless setheral sea fills the 
uttermost limits of the universe. In this sense, 
I think, Moses used the word waters. 

" And God said, Be light made ; and light was 
made." 

The Omnific fiat no sooner went forth than the 
universe exchanged its robes of repulsive darkness 
for those of dazzling brilliancy. Inorganic matter, 
so many millions of years inert, desolate and 
shapeless, is now undergoing re-formation, is now 
robed in a blaze of splendor which faintly reflects 
the glory and splendor of Him who evoked it out 



The First Day not a Solar Day. 3 1 

of nothing. The attenuated, imponderable, va- 
porous fluids, for the first time self-luminous, are 
borne by the non-luminous aether to the uttermost 
limits of space, which they light up with so great 
effulgence that the Creator pronounces his work 
good. 

" And God saw the light, that it was good ; and 
He divided the light from the darkness." 

Here we must not understand a formal division. 
The division referred to consisted in bringing 
light out of- elementary matter which was dark 
and torpid. It consisted in imparting luminosity 
to the nebulous fluids, which rendered them dis- 
tinctive from and superior to aether, which was 
non-luminous and only a reflector. It consisted, 
lastly, in the creation of angels, who were light, 
out of nothing, which was darkness. 

" And God called the light Day, and the dark- 
ness Night ; and there was evening and morning 
one day." 

It must be evident here to an ordinary biblical 
scholar that the term " day," yom, does not mean a 
period of time definite or indefinite ; it means light 
and its diffusion through space, through the me- 
dium of tenuous and elastic aether which fills the 
uttermost bounds of space, and is a conveyance of 
motion in the stellar regions. If Moses were im- 
pressed with the certitude that the measure of 



32 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

time contained in the first day was no greater than 
that contained in the fourth day, he would use an 
ordinal nymber : but this he does not do ; he uses a 
cardinal number to give us to infer that he had 
cognizance of, by divine inspiration, the nature of 
the day which he called one. 

It is evident, too, that Moses did not intend to 
convey the idea of an ordinary day by the lan- 
guage he used, from the fact that he places evening 
before morning in the formation of this one day. 
Now as evening is the harbinger of night, and 
morning of day, we cannot well conceive how 
evening followed by night could be construed into 
day. The language simply indicates the activity 
of God ad extra, by which entities were produced 
from a possible to an actual state. It means that 
pure spiritual beings were created out of nothing, 
that light was produced from darkness, that mo- 
tion was produced from inertia, and that the dawn 
of cosmical and spiritual being commenced, and 
therefore the one day expressed by Moses did not 
mean a solar day, but the development of being 
from non-being. It will be granted that the va- 
porous agglomerations that formed the universe 
were not all self-luminous ; if they were we would 
have no opaque bodies suspended in space. But 
we have, for we know that primaries are self- 
luminous, while planets are non-luminous and only 



The First Day not a Solar Day. ^i 

reflectors. Now Designing Reason or Omnific 
Power separated the luminous from the non-lumi- 
nous matter prior to the formation of primaries 
and satellites, and this separation Moses expressed 
as that of light from darkness, and calls the act day 
because it was a manifestation of God ad extra. 
On the fourth day this apportionment of matter 
was formed into luminous and non-luminous bod- 
ies which were poised in space. 

The Redeemer says, " I must work the works of 
Him that sent me whilst it is day ; the night Com- 
eth when no man can work/' * Here we see that 
the Lord used the word day to signify life, and the 
word night to signify death. Life, then, is light or 
day because of its participation in the divine 
essence which illumines it, while death is night or 
darkness from its non-reflecting powers on this 
earth. 

In the book of Job we find this very obscure 
question adverted to in the following words : 
" Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of 
the earth ?" That is, when Almighty Power cre- 
ated chaotic matter and formed the universe. 
"When the morning stars praised me together, 
and all the sons of God made a joyful melody ?" 
That is, when the light created was imparted to 

* John ix. 4. 



34 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

nebulous fluids ; when angels were created who 
admired the power of God and chanted his praise. 
" Who shut up the sea with doors when it broke 
forth as issuing out of the womb; when I made a 
cloud the garment thereof, and wrapped it in a 
mist as in swaddling bands ?"* That is, when 
the cosmical vapors or chaotic waters were sepa- 
rated from nebulous fluids, prior to the formation 
of the sun's photosphere, our atmosphere, our 
seas, lakes, rivers and their boundaries. This "in- 
supportable water,"f aqua intolerabilis, enveloped 
in dark clouds, corroborates the seventh verse of 
the first chapter of Genesis, and conclusively 
shows that the chaotic universe was circum* 
scribed by limits. 

St. Thomas says, " Creation took place before 
primordial day smiled upon the earth/' Sed me~ 
lius videtur dicendum quod creatio fuerit ante omnem 
diem.% Such also was the opinion of St. Augus- 
tin, who says, " In principio, fecisti coelum et terram 
ante omnem diem."§ In the Summa St. Thomas 
says again, " Coelum et terram fecit in prima die, 
POTIUS ante omnem diem." || St. Augustin says 
of the days of creation, " What kind of days they 
were it is very difficult to form an idea of, much 

*Job xxxviii. 8, 9. f Ps. cxxiii. 5. 

% In II. Sentent. Distinct, xiii. art. 3, ad tcrtiam. 

§ Confess, lib. xii. \ Pars 1, quaest. lxxxiv. art. 2. 



The First Day not a Solar Day. 35 

less explain their nature." Qui dies cujusmodi sint, 
aut per difficile nobis, ant etiam impossibile est cogi- 
tare ; quanto magis dicer e* 

I conclude, therefore, since the days of cre- 
ation neither represent to our minds solar days 
nor epochs of time, but the creation of angels, 
light, the universe, and the various orders of enti- 
ties in it, out of the deep, dark abyss of nothing- 
ness, through the steady, orderly, irresistible 
power of the Almighty, who still acts in the crea- 
tion of human souls, who can wait millions of ages 
for the fulfillment of the least of His designs, that 
the Bible is not convicted of falsehood. 

* De Civitate Dei, lib. xi cap. vi. 



CHAPTER III. 

IS THE MOON A GREAT LIGHT ? COULD GOD ACT 
WITH CRUELTY AND INJUSTICE? COULD THE 
EARTH'S MOTION BE STOPPED WITHOUT CAUSING 
ITS DESTRUCTION ? ARE MIRACLES IMPOSSIBLE ? 

My atheistic disputant again attempts to con- 
vict the Bible of falsehood. He says : " The Bible 
makes a misstatement, and is therefore convicted 
of falsehood, when it says that the moon is a great 
light, while on the evidence of physical science, 
which cannot be rejected, it is an opaque body, 
and less in magnitude than the stars ; that the God 
whom Christians believe in and worship is cruel 
and unjust because He destroyed the antedilu- 
vians except Noe and his family, overthrew the 
cities of the Amorrhites, the Moabites and Mad- 
ianites ; slew their innocent inhabitants, and gave 
their lands to wandering adventurers, who had no 
right to them whatever ; that if the motion of the 
earth were suddenly stopped, as the book of 
Josue states it was, the earth would crumble into 
atoms ; that miracles are impossible because con- 
trary to the laws of physical nature." 

To refute the first objection, if objection it be, 



The Moon a Great Light, 37 

in the foregoing count, I must briefly view the 
fourth day of creation, on which the moon is said 
to be made. "And God made two great lights: 
a greater light to rule the day, and a lesser to 
rule the night." Because Moses called the moon 
a great light, the Bible " therefore" is convicted of 
falsehood on the evidence of physical science. 
This is simply nonsense. He could not call it any- 
thing else, for the reason that it is a great light. 
The primitive, vaporous matter which filled the 
uttermost limits of the spatial, dark abyss for mil- 
lions of years was, after being penetrated by light, 
divided by the divine Architect into two distinct 
masses, which after condensation were formed 
into luminous and non-luminous bodies and sus- 
pended in space, to be distinct sources of illumina- 
tion by originating and reflecting light, and thus, 
as is the case with the two great lights of our sys- 
tem, " to divide the day and the night, and be 
signs for seasons, days, and years." According to 
the law of logic, whatever affords a great light is 
a great light ; but the moon affords a great light, 
and therefore, is a great light. The moon is a 
great light from the fact that the heat and life of 
night are due to its powers of refraction, radiation, 
and absorption. 

Here I ask my scientist, If the cosmical agglom- 
erations were an effect produced by " nebulous or 



38 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

self-luminous rings sent on a formative mission by 
igneous fluidity," why is it that in our solar sys- 
tem there is only one self-luminous body ? Why were 
not our sun, planets, and satellites self-luminous or 
opaque? If these bodies were formed by chance, 
as my scientist would have me believe, how did 
the matter which composed them divide itself into 
two sorts ? How did one part, in the absence of 
designing Reason and Power, fall into a self-lumin- 
ous mass, and another into an opaque ? These are 
questions for modern science and scientists to an- 
swer before their inferences can be accepted as 
truthful. 

If my friend had any apprehension at all of God, 
whose infinite essence, without physical exten- 
sion, fills unbounded space, whose omnipotence 
could create millions of worlds superior to ours 
in beauty, whose unchangeableness admits of no 
change, whose simplicity admits of no increase or 
diminution, whose glory all entities reflect and 
whose purity, holiness, and love inundate the celes- 
tial Jerusalem with rays of divine light infinitely 
more beautiful than the noonday light that inun- 
dates the world, he would not charge Him with 
cruelty or injustice. 

It was sin unto death that entailed punishment 
on these people. Every human being that comes 
into this world in a state of nature has written on 



What Sin is. 39 

his conscience in bold characters a distinction be- 
tween good and evil, the nature of morality, truth, 
and justice, outlines of God's law, which the crea- 
ture must not transgress. When he does, he sins 
and deserves punishment. Here I was asked to 
" define what sin is." Sin, mortal sin, is the con- 
scious and deliberate rebellion of a finite, created 
will against an infinite, uncreated will. It is a 
wilful, deliberate transformation of the soul from 
the image of its Creator to hideous deformity ; a 
turning away of the intellect through the delib- 
erate action of the will from right to wrong, from 
justice to injustice, from purity to sensuality, from 
the worship of the Creator to that of the creature. 
It is the transgression of the law.* Man, from 
the intrinsic principles of his nature, is bound to 
observe the natural law which is engraven upon 
his soul. When he transgresses this law know- 
ingly and wilfully, the justice of God demands 
that he be punished. This consists in the depriva- 
tion of life in this world and eternal bliss in the 
next. As man was called into being by an infinite 
act of divine love, he has no reason to complain 
if God deprive him of this gift because of his 
grossly criminal deeds. As the bestowal of gifts 
involves no principle of justice, the taking away 
of them does not argue a violation of justice. 

* I. John iii. 4. 



40 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

The antediluvians sinned so grievously and so 
repeatedly that the justice of God was forced to 
strike them. Noe, because he was a just and holy 
man who feared God, was saved from this general 
ruin. The Sodomites were consumed by fire from 
heaven because of their unnatural crimes, while 
the cities of the Amorrhites, Moabites, and Madian- 
ites w r ere razed because of the idolatry and sensu- 
ality of their citizens. 

It is not historically true that the " Hebrews 
were wandering adventurers." At the express 
command of God they were fleeing from pagan 
persecution — as are the Irish of to-day from Eng- 
lish — to Chanaan, a land flowing with milk and 
honey which was given to them by the Almighty. 

After the Egyptians were afflicted with the tenth 
plague, Pharao consented to allow the Hebrews 
to go in peace to Mount Horeb and offer sacrifice 
to God. While the Egyptians were weeping over 
the death of their first-born stricken by the Lord, 
the Hebrews went out of Egypt, and after a tedi- 
ous journey arrived at Baalzephon, or Beelsephon, 
on the Red Sea, where they camped. They were, 
however, no sooner gone than Pharao repented 
for allowing them to go, and, impelled by a bad 
spirit, pursued them with an armed force of two 
hundred thousand footmen, fifty thousand horse- 
men, and six hundred chariots. The Hebrews, see^ 



Miracles not Impossible. 41 

ing themselves shut in between steep mountains, 
the sea, and a hostile army ready to slaughter them, 
were deeply afflicted, and in accents of grief be- 
wailed the dreadful end that awaited them. In 
this emergency they appealed to Moses, their 
leader by divine appointment, for succor, who 
appealed to God. Moses had no sooner ended his 
prayer than by divine inspiration he smote the sea 
with his rod, which parted asunder at the stroke 
and afforded the Hebrews a safe passage to the 
opposite shore, a distance of five or more miles. 
The Egyptian army pursued the Hebrews, and 
while within the sea it assumed its uniform level 
and drowned them. From this miracle can be in- 
ferred the impotency of man when opposed to 
God. From it, too, can be inferred the care God 
takes of those who profess faith in His existence, 
love and serve Him. 

Moses, after having led the Hebrews within sight 
of the Promised Land, died. Immediately after 
his death, Josue, by divine appointment, assumed 
the leadership of the Hebrews, who were then en- 
camped in the valley of Jericho. Josue determined 
to take the city of Jericho, but before he could at- 
tempt this he had to cross the river Jordan, which 
at that time of the year overflowed its banks. 
Having neither boats nor rafts with which to cross 
the river, he implored the assistance of God, who 



42 A Catholic Priest and Scientists, 

stopped the flow of the river, so that the Hebrews 
passed over in safety, took the city, whose walls 
fell on their approach through Almighty Power. 
Subsequent to this the Amorrhites laid siege to the 
city of Gabaon, whose people were confederates 
of the Hebrews, and hence entitled to assistance 
from their newly acquired allies. This was not 
denied, for Josue gave battle to the Amorrhites 
and utterly destroyed them. It was during this 
engagement that he prayed to God to lengthen the 
day by the suspension of the earth's motion, in or- 
der to deal a death-blow to idolatry in the land of 
Chanaan, a country of south-western Asia, which 
henceforth was to be the arena of the greatest 
events in the world's history. 

The standing still of the sun, or the stoppage of 
the diurnal motion of the earth for half a revolu- 
tion, at the prayer of Josue, was a miraculous stop- 
page to afford Josue a vision of the Amorrhites he 
was pursuing, whom he completely vanquished. 
In confirmation of the standing still of the sun 
Habacuc says, " The sun and moon stood still in 
their habitation, in the light of Thy arrows;"* and 
Ecclesiasticus says, " Was not the sun stopped in 
His anger and one day made as two ?" f 

But my scientist will not admit a supernatural 

* Habac. iii. it. f Ecclus, xlvi. 5 



Miracles not Impossible. 43 

lengthening of the day by the appearance of the 
sun in the horizon longer than usual, because to 
his mind everything miraculous or supernatural is 
contrary and opposed to the physical laws of na- 
ture. 

As physical nature and its laws received their 
being from God, they must depend upon Him for 
their being: no rational act of the mind can con- 
ceive them intelligible, except inasmuch as they 
exist in Him. From this it follows that atheism 
cannot divorce God's conserving energy from 
physical nature, and therefore its laws do not con- 
trol God, but He controls them. As God controls 
the laws of physical nature from the relation exist- 
ing between the infinite and finite, the necessary 
and dependent, miracles are possible. A miracle is 
an event in which the laws of nature are suspended 
or interrupted by Omnipotent agency, that man 
may become conscious, may acquire an apprehen- 
sion of a Supreme Being in the invisible world. As 
the laws of physical nature and the laws of univer- 
sal nature, or the nature of things, are not one and 
the same, miracles are possible and in conformity 
to the nature of things. 

The relation existing between God and man in 
his fallen state demands the existence of miracles, 
that man might turn his mind from the material to 
the spiritual world, from the visible to the invisi- 



44 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

ble, and from the dependent to the self-existing. 
What we are by nature Adam became by his fall, 
which concealed from his vision his Maker who 
endowed him with natural and supernatural gifts 
upon his entrance into time. His abuse of these 
caused the elements of his nature to war with each 
other and with God, whom he saw no more. As 
God willed to redeem man, He established the 
miraculous order which has continued active in 
the visible world from man's fall to the present. 

The Almighty laid the foundation of the miracu- 
lous order when in the earthly paradise He prom- 
ised to redeem man. Did not the release of the 
Hebrews from Egyptian bondage, their passage 
through the Red Sea, belong to the miraculous or- 
der ? Did not the production of water from a rock, 
the manna that rained from heaven, the brazen ser- 
pent and its healing qualities, belong to the miracu- 
lous order? 

The New Testament and the history of the 
Church record miracles as various and wonderful 
as those recorded in the Old Testament, wrought 
by our Lord, the Apostles and Saints, the odor of 
whose lives exhaled celestial perfumes. The as- 
sumption of flesh by the eternal Word, His birth, 
the changing of water into wine, of bread and wine 
into His body and blood, were deep, stupendous 
miracles. So numerous and well-authenticated 



Miracles not Impossible. 45 

were miracles in the Church of God that St. Ire- 
naeus reproached the heretics of his day with the 
inability of giving sight to the blind, hearing to 
the deaf, and of restoring the dead to life, as was 
done in the one true Church.* The history of 
God's people from the fall of Adam to the present 
is one series of deep, awful miracles which sus- 
pended every natural iaw of our nature, and which 
fill our souls with love and admiration for Him 
through whose power they were wrought. To 
enumerate the miracles authenticated by history 
would be difficult because they were wrought in 
every age of the world by saints replete with 
supernatural gifts. Prior to man's fall, it is the be- 
lief of theologians, " that miracles did not exist 
in paradise, because what is now extraordinary 
was then ordinary. The Creator conversed with 
Adam, and he with angels, so that in a certain 
sense he saw God and the unseen world." f 

* Lib. ii. contra Haer. cap. 31. 
f Summa, pars i, quaest. xciv. art. 1, 2. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE CREATION OF ADAM. HIS SUPERNATURAL 
GIFTS. HIS DISOBEDIENCE. A PROMISE OF RE- 
DEMPTION WAS THE ONLY HOPE THAT CHEERED 
HIM AND THE HEBREWS IN THEIR VICISSITUDES. 
WAS EVIL INHERENT IN ADAM'S WILL? IS EVIL 
AN ENTITY? IN WHAT IS THE SOUL LIKE TO 
GOD? DID ADAM CREATE THE SOUL OF HIS 
OFFSPRING? WHAT WAS THE SOURCE OF EVIL? 
AND WHAT ARE ITS CONSEQUENCES? 

" And God said, Let us make man to Our image 
and likeness ; and let him have dominion over the 
fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the 
beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping 
thing that moveth on the earth. And God cre- 
ated man to His own image, to the image of God 
He created him ; male and female He created 
them." * 

On the sixth day of creation, upon the earth 
perfected, poised in space, adorned with natural 
scenery, enriched with mineral wealth, teeming 
with animal life, resplendent from the blaze of 

* Gen. i. 26, 27. 



Adams Supernatural Gifts. 47 

light shed upon it by the sun, moon, and stars, 
God placed man, lord of all he surveyed, and next 
to the angels in intelligence. God did not pro- 
nounce the creation of man good as He did His 
other works ; inasmuch as he was an animal, he 
was included in the other works which were 
" very good." But inasmuch as he was man and 
belonged to the empyrean or spiritual world, he 
was not pronounced "good" because he was on 
probation, which was to determine whether he 
was good or not. His introduction into time, 
therefore, was vespertine, or began with evening, 
which was to brighten into morning only after his 
probation ended, on which he would be "good." 

After God created Adam He placed him in a gar- 
den of delights,endued with supernatural gifts which 
introduced the indwelling of the Holy Ghost into 
his soul, enabled him to converse with his Creator, 
with the angels, and, as St. Thomas says, in a certain 
sense, to see God. The possession of these gifts 
rendered his soul harmonious with itself and God, 
while they rendered his body immortal. To the 
continuance of these gifts and their transmission 
to his posterity only one thing was required of 
him, namely, the non-eating of the fruit of a certain 
tree in paradise, pointed out to him by his Creator. 
The non-eating of the fruit of this tree entered into 
the compact God made with Adam, was its e&- 



48 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

sence, and therefore, upon its non-observance, the 
deprivation of his supernatural gifts would ensue 
as a consequence. He did not observe the com- 
pact, for he knowingly and deliberately ate of the 
forbidden fruit, and " died the death. " * " Where- 
fore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and 
by sin death ; and so death passed upon all men, 
in whom all have sinned." f As the supernatural 
gifts Adam received from his Maker were gratui- 
tous, he, and humanity in him, forfeited them by 
his fall. Had he remained faithful, had he ob- 
served the compact, he would be supernaturally 
" good/' and, therefore, would transmit to human- 
ity the supernatural gifts conferred upon him. 
His right, and that of his posterity, to enter into 
the unseen, spiritual kingdom of God no longer 
existed ; his sin obliterated it, and therefore, God's 
kingdom was separated from him and his posterity 
by a chasm which could not be bridged until the 
Eternal Word assumed flesh and bridged it on 
Mount Calvary. 

Adam had no sooner transgressed than he was 
confronted by the Almighty, who stripped him of 
his supernatural gifts and cast him out of para- 
dise. His unhappy fall weakened his will, dark- 
ened his intellect, and forced the Holy Ghost to 



* Gen. ii. 17. f Rom. v. 12. 

i 



A Promise of Redemption. 49 

depart from his soul, which was no longer in har- 
mony with God or itself, and planted the seeds of 
mortality in his body. Henceforth he had to earn 
his bread by the sweat of his brow. " In the sweat 
of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to 
the earth out of which thou wast taken ; for dust 
thou art, and into dust thou shalt return." * 

Although Adam had " sinned unto death," yet 
he was not doomed to an endless death as were 
the fallen angels ; he was more mercifully dealt 
with than they, through a promise of redemp- 
tion which, when fulfilled, would wipe out his of- 
fence and restore him to the friendship of God. 
" I will put enmities between thee and the woman, 
and thy seed and her seed ; she shall crush thy 
head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel."f 
This promise was the only hope* that cheered him 
and the Hebrew people in their vicissitudes ; the 
only plank on which there was safety in their ship- 
wrecked condition. 

Here my scientist said, " Unless evil w r ere in- 
herent in Adam's will, he would not recede from 
God through disobedience ; but he did, and there- 
fore, since God created Adam's soul, He created 
the evil inherent in his will.'* 

As evil did not develop itself before Adam dis- 

* Gen. iii. 19. f Ubi sup., 15. 



5<D A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

obeyed, it follows that it was connected with the 
act of disobedience, and, therefore, followed as a 
consequence of evil choice, or of willing what God 
did not will. To Adam, in a state of innocence or 
original justice, there were two principles ex- 
ternal, the one good, the other bad. The good 
principle, God, told him to observe the compact 
he entered into ; the bad principle, the devil, told 
him to violate it. As he was a/ra? agent he willed 
what God did not will, and, therefore, was guilty 
of sin, which reduced him to his natural state by 
stripping him of his supernatural gifts. 

Evil or iniquity in itself has no existence be- 
cause it is not an entity. It is not an entity, because 
it has no essence ; it has no essence, because it is 
only the deprivation of grace, which is the life of 
the soul. But as every being God created has 
substance, and as evil has none, therefore, God did 
not create it, and therefore, too, it was not in- 
herent in Adam's will. 

Here my physicist gave way to his colleague, 
who entered the domain of psychology by asking 
"in what the soul was like to God." 

The soul is like to God in being simple, im- 
material, incorruptible essence ; it is like to God 
when it walks in the path of purity, truth, justice, 
and mercy, which, as we have seen, are outlines of 
God's law, and are engraven upon it. 



Evil not inherent in Adams Will. 51 

" If every creative act of God were gopd, how 
could the creation of Adam be good, since all 
those descended from him are children of wrath, 
according to Catholic teaching?" 

Inasmuch as Adam was a rational creature he 
had a nature in common with the invisible and 
visible, or with the spiritual and material worlds. 
To obtain his ultimate end he was endued with 
supernatural gifts, which, as we have seen, were 
forfeited by inclining his will toward that which 
God did not will. Being the head of the human 
race, he held, so to say, in trust the supernatural 
gifts he received from God for the benefit of the 
human family, which would descend to them if he 
remained faithful. But as he forfeited this trust, 
and as the human family were in him, they for- 
feited it also, and hence are said to come into the 
world children of " wrath," not because of any 
actual sin they committed, for infants cannot com- 
mit actual sin, but because of the sin of deprivation 
in which they were born. God does not hate the 
intelligent beings He creates, except inasmuch as 
they deliberately commit actual sin. Those who 
do not are said, according to the teachings of the 
Church, to be born " children of wrath," inasmuch 
as supernatural beatitude is not given to them, or 
inasmuch as the enjoyment of the Beatific Vision is 
denied to them. As the human family lost no pure 



52 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

natural right by Adam's sin, it follows that the 
creative act which formed him was good. Not 
only was the creation of Adam good, but that of 
every entity, because being is better than non-being. 

" Now," said my psychologist, " it must be ad- 
mitted that, according to the laws of physical 
nature, Adam generated the germ of the human 
soul as he did that of the body, and, therefore, we 
do not owe our existence to God, but to man 
whose entrance into time is enigmatic. " 

There is nothing at all enigmatical connected 
with man's entrance into time. As he could not 
create himself, and as nebulous rings could not form 
his spiritual and material nature out of chaotic 
matter which had neither vitality nor formative 
effectivity inherent in it, it follows, therefore, as I 
have already proved, that the creation of the soul 
is the work of Almighty Power. As generation is 
not an act of the soul, but of the body, inasmuch 
as man is an animal, Adam did not " generate the 
germ of the soul," because the soul does not and 
cannot evolve from a human germ. As the hu- 
man body is composite, material, and mortal, it 
could not produce a simple, immaterial, and im- 
mortal effect any more than a lesser could contain 
a greater. God creates the soul; and man is " the 
occasional cause." * 

* Problems of the Age, p. 227. 



God the Source of the Soul. 53 

" If the human spermatozoon/* said my scientist, 
"be examined microscopically, it will be found to 
enjoy motile force, or animalcular life, which fixes 
the conclusion on the mind that man, and not God, 
is the source of, and germinates the soul." 

If the spermatozoon of the brute be examined 
microscopically the same phenomenon will be wit- 
nessed. The nature and essence of the soul de- 
mand that its root be in God and not in matter. 
It is the belief of the Church, the opinion of theo- 
logians, Christian physicians, and purely scientific 
minds, that, quando impregnatur, ovum, the Almighty 
creates a soul and imparts it to this, from which a 
human being evolves. 

When Adam fell and was driven out of para- 
dise, he was not only placed under a curse, but, 
thenceforth, God was hidden from his eyes. Al- 
though he was created to the image of God, certain 
traces of which he retained, yet he was a poor 
citizen of earth, cursed by his sin, such as we are 
by nature, with nothing to cheer him but his faith 
in and hope of the promise of redemption. Out 
of these, then, he had to build and fit a vessel 
which he must steer over the ocean of time, 
lashed into fury by his sinful act. Through these 
he strove, but in vain, to appease the anger of 
God kindled against him. The Word made flesh 
could effect a reconciliation, and He did. 



54 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

At a glance Adam saw that the moral horizon, 
which surrounded him, was dark and dreary ; that 
it was heavily hung with ominous clouds of pas- 
sion, which, at any moment, were liable to burst 
upon him and bring him to a sorrowful sense of 
his guilt. He had not long to wait before it set in 
upon him in all its fury, for one of his sons killed 
the other! This was a heavy cross for him to 
carry, but he could not complain because he made 
it through his disobedience. . 

St Augustin says : " In the conduct of Cain 
was prefigured the malice of the reprobate, while 
in that of Abel the suffering and patience of the 
citizens of the City of God." * Vincent de Beau- 
vais says : " In Cain began the malice of the repro- 
bate, in Abel the patience of the saints. Cain 
built an earthly city, and congregated wealth by 
rapine and violence, and invited his friends to the 
commission of robbery, and, fearing those whom 
he injured, on account of his insecurity he col- 
lected his followers in cities. Cain was born 
before just Abel to show that in Adam the whole 
human race was corrupted in mass ; and that when 
any one from this mould was made a vessel of 
honor, this proceeds not from nature but from the 



* De Civ. Dei, lib. xv. cap. xv. 



The Source of Evil. 55 

mercy of God calling ; that the studies of the sons 
of Cain manifest to what state they belong." * 

Schlegel says : " The descendants of Cain are 
distinguished in all original records for their skill 
in mechanical arts, and for a warlike spirit, pro- 
ducing at last a race of giants. On the other 
hand, the descendants of Seth are distinguished 
for piety, reverence, and virtue. These two races 
of men are marked in profane monuments as well 
as in Holy Writ." f 

And so they were ; for the name Cain signifies 
" possession," while the term Seth indicates "res- 
urrection." On the one hand, the descendants of 
Cain were a sensual, bloodthirsty, dishonest race, 
who paid the creature the adoration due to the 
Creator, and lapsed into polytheism. On the 
other, the posterity of Seth were a mild, peaceable, 
religious race, who paid God the worship due 
Him, based their hope of redemption on the ad- 
vent of a Redeemer who would bridge the chasm 
that separated them from God, and therefore 
looked on idolatry as repugnant to the instincts of 
reason. Of these two races it can be said that the 
former was led by and served the principle of evil 
— the devil ; and that the latter was led by and 

* Vin. Bel. Spec. Hist. i. 57. 
f Philos. der Geschichte, i. 55. 



56 A Catholic Priest aitd Scientists. 

served the principle of good — God. Polytheists 
and monotheists were at variance with each other 
for four thousand years. The former set their 
hearts upon perishable objects ; the latter upon 
the durable. The former were the enemies of 
religion and civilization ; the latter were the 
friends of both. Oppression as diabolical as that 
which absorbed the life-blood of Ireland: poison- 
ing, sensuality, and assassination reigned supreme. 

Monotheists built a Beth-Kakeneseth, or syna- 
gogue, in honor of the true God, in which He was 
worshipped and His name invoked. They com- 
piled the Old Testament, based on the truths God 
revealed, which breathed a spirit of inspiration 
and authoritatively taught that all things visible 
and invisible were created out of nothing by 
Almighty Power ; that man was stripped of 
original justice because of his disobedience, and 
that he could only be restored to the friendship of 
his Creator by the fulfillment of the promise of 
redemption. 

Polytheists built temples to their false gods, in 
which they were worshipped and their names in- 
voked ; and with this worship were connected 
unutterable abominations. As those filthy deities 
were depraved and sensual, chastity and sobriety 
had to yield to their demands. Polytheists com- 
piled a philosophy, which at one time admitted 



The Source of Evil. 57 

the existence of one true God, and at another, 
counselled the worship of false gods, and smiled 
approvingly on the commission of gross immoral- 
ity. Cicero said, " In man there is a principle 
which inclines him to goodness and deters him 
from the pursuit of evil. This is as old as God 
through whom the heavens and the earth sub- 
sist." * Seneca says, " The first thing is to wor- 
ship the gods and exercise faith in their existence ; 
the next, to acknowledge their existence and 
bounty, without which there would be neither 
majesty nor bounty. " f Plato says, " God is om- 
nipotent, and He created the world out of noth- 
ing/' From this Aristotle dissents by saying, 
u Out of nothing, nothing is deducible." % Plato, 
after admitting the existence of one true God, next 
teaches that the " world has a soul and that the 
stars are divinities, and hence, worship must be 
paid to them." § Plato, in another place says, 
u Women were created to minister to men's pas- 
sions ; that they should live in common and have 
recourse to abortion." || 

* Cic. ad Attic, xii. 28. f Sen., Epis. x. c. v. 

X Vide Lau. Var. Aristot. Fort. Opp., t. iv. pars. 1. 

§ Vide Eusebii, Opp. t. iii. cap. 16, lib. vii. cap. 16. 

I " Oportet profectio secundum ea qua supra concessimus, op- 
timos viros mulieribus optimis ut plurium congredi; deterimos 
autem contra deterimos. " — Pla. Rep. lib. v. 



58 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

From these few extracts the motives which 
induced the erection of temples to a host of im- 
pure, drunken gods can be inferred. Oh, how 
heartless and blind must that so-called philosophy 
be, whether ancient or modern, which attempts to 
debase man by benumbing the measure of intel- 
lectuality given to him by the Almighty, by the 
proper use of which He can be known ! 

Here my scientist delivered quite a eulogy " on 
the refinement of the Greeks, and on the progress 
of the Romans, to which the Hebrews were stran- 
gers, from the teaching of the synagogue and the 
Old Testament, which have been convicted of false- 
hood/' He further said, but failed to prove, " that 
the absorption of the life-blood of Ireland was not 
a result of oppression, but of a religious system 
which paralyzed the manhood of its people." 

As I shall correct my friend's mistaken idea of 
Grecian refinement, Roman progress, and of the 
religious system which paralyzed the manhood of 
the Irish in another part of this work, I will sim- 
ply remark, and history bears me out in the same, 
that the Jewish people would be contaminated 
with the moral leprosy which, under the guise of 
refinement and progress, corroded the vitals of 
these unhappy nations, if it were not for the hope- 
ful whisperings of the synagogue and the teaching 
of the Old Testament, which has not been con- 



The Consequences of Evil. 59 

victed of falsehood, except on the testimony of 
atheism. 

Before the synagogue was, or a sentence of the 
Old Testament was written, God Himself, imme- 
diately, pointed out to Noe, Abraham, Job, and 
Moses, teachers of His people, the refinement 
which should adorn the intellects of the Hebrews, 
and the progress they should make. 

As God promised in the earthly paradise to re- 
deem man, He willed that this be constantly kept 
before the minds of His people, that through the 
grace of hope they might escape the moral disease 
which consumed pagan nations. To effect this 
He raised up inspired teachers who continually 
adverted to the promise of redemption, and, at the 
same time, instructed the Hebrews in all things 
necessary to salvation. As these instructions were 
divinely communicated to these teachers, it followed 
that they assumed the form and acquired the value 
of traditionary and written truths which could not 
approve of, or teach error. That this is true every 
Christian will admit ; that this is true is self-evident 
from the unity of parts, the impassioned eloquence, 
the plaintive wail and sublime versification of the 
Old Testament, which has not yet been equalled 
by any mortal. 

St. Chrysostom says of the holy Scriptures, 
11 They are a paradise always refreshed with gen- 



60 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

tie winds and delightful air, a garden full of 
the sweetest flowers." Yes, but to festoon the in- 
tellect with these flowers requires more than ordi- 
nary skill. No denomination outside the Catholic 
Church can weave a truthful argument of scrip- 
tural films, for the reason that she alone is the 
custodian of the holy Scriptures, and by divine 
appointment their exponent. The holy Scriptures 
are a history of creation and the human race, in 
which are seen the creative and conserving energy 
of God, the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ for 
the redemption of man, and the establishment of 
the Catholic Church. It is very true, indeed, that 
they abound in mysteries before which we must 
bow, and which we must accept without attempt- 
ing to comprehend them, because they are above 
human intelligence. The holy Scriptures are deep 
and difficult of comprehension, and hence, require 
profound and extensive knowledge for a proper 
understanding of them. 

The disadvantage under which scientists and 
Protestants labor consists in their unwillingness to 
have access to the pure Word of God. The so- 
called scriptures they are accustomed to read, are 
so corrupted by verbiage never uttered by inspired 
lips, that they are not even a shadow of those in 
the possession of, and taught by the Catholic 
Church. This we shall see more at large in 



The Consequences of Evil, 6 1 

another part of this work. It is no wonder, then, 
that human religions, through the light of this 
false guide, came into existence, whose unity is 
expressed by the term Babel ; that Voltaire and 
Rousseau ignored its teachings and built a deistic 
system which belonged to no religion, on inferences 
deduced from the rationalism of principles or 
causes ; that Paine, Ingersoll, my scientists, and a 
host of others plunged headlong into the chasm 
of deism and atheism. The sand-bar on which 
Ingersoll got shipwrecked was justification by faith 
alone. Seeing this barefaced untruth of Luther's 
incorporated in what he was taught to be the Word 
of God, he became indignant, and commenced to 
wage a war of words upon true and false religion. 
If this man were to consult any Catholic priest on 
the so-called scriptural text that haunted him day 
and night, he would be told that it was not of the 
holy Scriptures, but was a clumsy lie of the heresi- 
arch Luther, who bid defiance to God and true 
religion. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. THE MORAL ASPECT OF 
SOCIETY WHEN CHRIST WAS BORN. WAS THE 
BODY OF CHRIST FORMED INDEPENDENT OF OR 
OUTSIDE THE NATURAL ORDER OF GENERATION? 
ARE THERE THREE GODS IN THE BLESSED TRIN- 
ITY ? IS THE BLESSED VIRGIN NO BETTER THAN 
ANY OTHER WOMAN? DO CATHOLICS PAY HER 
THE WORSHIP THAT BELONGS TO GOD? 

The time had now arrived on which the Al- 
mighty creative act was to reach the extreme of 
possibility, by the formation of a human body 
rendered pure, impeccable, spotless, and holy by 
reason of its hypostatic union with the uncreated 
or divine nature. The time had now arrived on 
which the eternal Word was to unite Himself to a 
body formed of the blood of the immaculate Virgin, 
and to a soul created by the Most High, who was 
to "ovef shadow" the purest of the daughters of 
Eve. But before the eternal decree could be ful- 
filled, a spotless virgin, whose name was Mary, of 
the tribe of Juda and of the line of David, had to 
be consulted. In man's redemption she had a part 
to act which was to pierce her soul with grief. To 
obtain her consent to become the Mother of God, 



The Birth of Christ. 63 

the angel Gabriel was sent from the empyrean 
heavens to her at Nazareth, a city of Judea, who 
saluted her with, " Hail, full of grace, the Lord is 
with thee ; blessed art thou among women." * 
When the Virgin heard this salutation she was 
troubled and thought with herself " what manner 
of salutation this should be." And the angel said 
to her, " Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace 
with God ; behold, thou shalt conceive in thy 
womb, and shalt bring forth a son, and thou shalt 
call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall 
be called the Son of the Most High ; and the Lord 
God shall give unto Him, the throne of David, his 

father." f 

Mary, after having inquired how the great mys- 
tery was to be accomplished, and upon being told 
that it would be effected by the Holy Ghost out- 
side of the natural order of generation, said, " Be- 
hold the hand-maid of the Lord ; be it done to me 
according to Thy word." % 

Mary had no sooner consented to become the 
Mother of God than the Eternal Word descended 
and formed for Himself in her chaste womb a 
body, and created a soul to animate this body, to 
which he united Himself, and the God-man thus 
conceived pillowed on the chaste bosom of the 
Virgin for nine months. 

* Luke i. 28. f Ubi sup. 30, 33. % Ibid. 38. 



64 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

The solemn grandeur, the deep mystery of the 
incarnation, impervious to human reason, will 
dazzle the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem for 
all eternity. The Christian soul, while contemplat- 
ing this august mystery, must bury itself in its own 
nothingness, and with St. Paul exclaim, "Oh the 
depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge 
of God ! how incomprehensible are His judg- 
ments, and how unsearchable His ways ! For who 
hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath 
been His counsellor? Or who hath first given to 
Him, and recompense shall be made him? For in 
Him and of Him and by Him were all things; to 
Him be glory forever." * 

In the 4000th year from the creation of the world, 
and the 750th after the building of Rome, Caesar 
Augustus issued a decree that the " whole world 
should be enrolled. This enrolling was first made 
by Cyrinus, the governor of Syria. And all went 
to be enrolled, every one into his own city. And 
Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of 
Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which 
is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house 
and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his 
espoused wife, who was with child. And it came to 
pass that, when they were there, her days were ac- 

* Rom. xi. 33-36. 



The Birth of Christ. 65 

complished that she should be delivered. And she 
brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him 
up in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger ; 
because there was no room for them in the inn. 
And there were in the same country shepherds 
watching and keeping night-watches over their 
flock. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood by 
them, and the brightness of God shone round 
about them, and they feared with a great fear. And 
the angel said to them, Fear not; for behold 1 
bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to 
all the people; for this day is born to you a Sa- 
viour, who is Christ the Lord, in the city of David. 
And this shall be a sign unto you : you shall find 
the infant wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and laid 
in a manger/' * 

This plain, simple history of the birth of our 
Lord, from the pen of St. Luke, humanly viewed, 
is truly pitiable. That the long-expected Messias, 
whose sceptre was to sway the kingdoms of the 
whole world, could be ushered into time and space 
under such poor, humiliating circumstances no 
one would believe, unless the fact was attested by 
infallible truth. The sensual, pagan emperor, Au- 
gustus, desired to ascertain the number of his sub- 
jects, and hence, decreed that a general census be 

* Luke ii. 1-12. 



66 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

made, each one registerrig his name in his own 
city. As Joseph and Mary belonged to Bethle- 
hem, thither they journeyed to comply with the 
decree of the emperor. Upon their arrival in 
Bethlehem, finding no admission in the public 
inns, they were forced to seek shelter in a rude 
cave tenanted by an ox and an ass, and there Mary 
gave birth to uncreated Light, the eternal Son of 
God ! Why was the God-man born in Bethlehem 
in preference to any other city of Judea? That 
the prophecy of Micheas might be fulfilled : " And 
thou, Bethlehem Ephrata, art a little one among 
the thousands of Juda ; out of thee shall He come 
forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel ; and 
His going forth is from the beginning, from the 
days of eternity." * Why was not our blessed 
Lord born in a stately mansion, decorated and 
furnished in royal splendor? Because He and 
the kingdom He was soon to establish were not of 
this world, and because He came to set the cap- 
tive free who had become a slave through pride. 
These, in the divine decrees, He was to accomplish 
by humiliation and suffering, and the first lesson in 
these He taught from the manger in Bethlehem. 

As the first act of an infant upon its entrance 
into this world is to weep, the infant Jesus wept 

* Mich. v. 2. 



The Birth of Christ. 67 

bitterly ; not over the forlorn, poverty-stricken 
condition of His blessed Mother ; not over the 
cold, dreary, damp, dingy, dismal stable in which 
He was born ; not over the couch of straw on 
which He reclined ; not over the presence of dumb 
beasts ; not over the absence of royal courtiers to 
caress Him and herald in His birth ; not over the 
cold that purpled His body and chilled His blood. 
Ah ! no. He wept over the sins of an apostate 
world ; over the insults and contradictions He was 
to receive from His own ; over the ignominious 
death He was to die on Mount Calvary; over 
the spiritual blindness of those who refused to 
receive Him and profess faith in the religion He 
was to establish ; over the schisms and heresies 
that were to attack His Church ; over the obsti- 
nacy of deists and atheists who deny His impress 
upon their souls ; over the absence of charity in 
the hearts of those who profess Him with their 
lips, but give to the world what belongs to Him ; 
over the cold, indifferent treatment He would re- 
ceive from many, alas! too many, who would be 
custodians of His sanctuary ; over the many sac- 
rileges that would be committed in the name 
and under the garb of religion. These, and these 
alone, caused the infant Jesus to weep in the crib 
in Bethlehem. 

Let us now look at the bright side of this sad 



68 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

picture which I have faintly drawn, attending the 
birth of our Lord. To the eye of faith the stable 
is a celestial structure whose splendor the human 
mind cannot comprehend, any more than it can the 
unveiled beauty and splendor of the " Word made 
flesh." It is no longer a dreary, dingy, dismal, 
comfortless hovel, but a royal palace in which is 
erected a throne for the King of kings, the Aoyos 
of the Father, from which He swayed authority 
over heaven, earth, and hell In and around it 
were legions of pure spirits, holy intelligences who 
paid supreme adoration to their Creator, blessed 
and praised His goodness for assuming humanity 
for man's redemption. So soon as Christ was born 
a ray of dazzling effulgence shot forth from His 
Divinity, sped through space with more than 
lightning speed, entered the imperial heavens and 
announced to its citizens that the personal pres- 
ence of God, robed in the weeds of humanity, 
blessed the earth; that the robes of sinful man 
were about to be " washed and made white in the 
blood of the Lamb;"* that heaven was about to 
be opened to the souls detained in Limbo, and that 
a star (the Church), " fair as the moon, bright as 
the sun," was about to be set in the firmament 
of humanity, which would diffuse its soft light 
throughout the earth. 

* Apoc. vii. 14. 



Society at the Birth of Christ. 69 

To the eye of faith Mary was no longer that 
poor, forlorn maid who, in the company of an old 
man, upon being refused lodgings in the inns of 
Bethlehem, sought shelter from the inclemency of 
the night in a rude stable. No. Her condition is 
entirely changed, for she is now the Deipara, the 
Mother of God, the Queen of heaven and earth, and, 
therefore, presides over the royal palace of her 
divine Son, partakes of its glor}-, drinks in the soft, 
sweet melody chanted by the holy intelligences who 
surround the throne of their God and pay Him wor- 
ship. Upon casting her eyes, luminous with puri- 
ty, sparkling with holiness, radiant with meekness 
and humility, for the first time on her divine Son, 
she discerned an affectionate smile of recognition 
on His countenance which filled her soul with joy, 
so intense, that she could not live if He did not 
sustain her. In the language of filial affection he 
called her Naomi, that is, Beautiful, and clung 
closer to her heart replete with every virtue. 

When the Redeemer was born the aspect of 
pagan society, as we have already partially seen, 
was sickeningly sad. Owing to the misuse of rea- 
son and the absence of religious light which points 
out to the soul its duty to God and its neighbor, 
the Gentile nations were steeped in moral turpi- 
tude, as gross as that which caused the Lord to 
rain fire from heaven on the city of Sodom. Hea- 



70 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

thenism, with all its abominations, so completely 
inundated the earth, except the little kingdom of 
Judea, that the external principle of evil reigned 
supreme over it. 

At this period the Roman empire was bounded 
on the east by the Euphrates, on the south by 
Egypt, Libya, and northern Africa, on the north 
by the Rhine, and on the west by the Atlantic 
Ocean. This vast empire the once hardy, frugal, 
warlike Romans might have saved from invasion 
and consequent dismemberment were it not for the 
large amount of wealth that flowed into the public 
coffers from the subjugation of Greece, Syria, and 
Asia Minor, which dulled their intellects and 
effeminated their manliness. Thenceforth faith, 
honor, and honesty disappeared, and the spoliation 
of the public revenue by public servants became a 
chronic disease, while a vast sea of immorality in- 
undated the empire which destroyed more souls 
created after the image of God than the Diluvian 
catastrophe. 

To give the reader, who may not be conversant 
with the history of pagan Rome, an idea of the 
godless rapacity that drove this empire to acts of 
cruelty and consequent ruin, I will give an extract 
from Lactantius respecting the oppression in Gaul 
during the reign of the Emperor Maximin, who 
was a monster of cruelty and was assassinated by 



Society at the Birth of Christ yi 

his own troops near Aquileia, after three years' 
inglorious reign. 

" That was a common grief and public calamity 
when the census was made in cities and provinces, 
the censors being sent in all directions, whence 
hostile tumults and horrible kinds of captivity. 
The lands were measured by glebe, the vines and 
trees were numbered, animals of all kinds in- 
scribed, the heads of men noted ; the citizens and 
rustics were assembled promiscuously in the cities, 
and all the forums filled with servants, every one 
being present with his children and servants ; tor- 
ture and stripes were inflicted, sons being exam- 
ined against their fathers, servants against their 
masters, wives against their husbands. No excuse 
for age or sickness. The aged and sick were car- 
ried forth ; the ages of all were written down ; years 
were added to little ones and taken from the old. 
All places were full of grief and sadness. What 
the ancient conquerors inflicted on the vanquished 
by law of war this was done now by Romans 
against Roman subjects ; yet faith was not placed 
in the same censors, but others were sent after 
others, as if more could yet be found. Meanwhile 
the animals diminished and men died ; and then 
tribute was required for the dead, so that no one 
could die gratis. Beggars alone remained, and 
the impious man had pity on their misery ; so he 



j 2 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

ordered them to be assembled and exported in 
ships and thrown into the sea."* 

Is not England's treatment of the Irish parallel 
to this? These unfortunate people, whose nation- 
al life-blood has been absorbed to the last drop, on 
whom indescribable persecution has been inflicted 
for centuries in the name of God and civilization, 
ask for bread and justice, and receive for both 
buckshot. It is true, very true indeed, that the 
work of the devil is the same in every age of the 
world. It matters not whether the royal mon- 
strosity employed by the external principle of evil 
to persecute human beings be pagan or so-called 
Christian, their actions are alike. 

St. Paul, describing the immoral and idolatrous 
state of society when Christ was born, says: " They 
changed the glory of the incorruptible God into 
the likeness of the image of corruptible man. and 
birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things ; 
they changed the truth of God into a lie, and wor- 
shipped and served the creature rather than the 
Creator. ,, f In punishment of this, he says : " God 
delivered them up to shameful afflictions. . . . Be- 
ing filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, 
covetousness, wickedness ; full of envy, murder, 
contention, deceit, malignity, and whispers.":}: 

* Lactancii, lib. de Mortibus Persecutorum, cap. 23. 
f Romans i. 24. % Ubi sup. 26-29. 



Society at the Birth of Christ. 73 

Such was the state of society when the Son of 
God was born in Bethlehem ; such was its loath- 
someness when He founded His Church, and sent, 
His Apostles to preach the truths He received 
from His heavenly Father to those who sat in the 
shadows of death ; such were the " refined " besti- 
alities, the gross progress of Greece and Rome 
which atheistic philosophers wanted the Jews to 
pursue, instead of listening to the hopeful whisper- 
ings of the synagogue and the salutary teachings 
of the Old Testament. 

I must now cease to dilate on historic truths 
which present to our view the nature and char- 
acter of the maladies that afflicted pagan nations 
which Christianity had to heal, because the frag- 
ment I have presented to the intellects of my dis- 
putants is too nauseous, and therefore, to avoid a 
continuation of the dose, they propound an objec- 
tion which I must answer satisfactorily, otherwise 
my cause is lost and the Catholic Church is ship- 
wrecked. Of the Church I entertain no fear, for 
the reason that her prosperous voyage over the 
ocean of time does not at all depend on my capa- 
bilities to defend her against carping deists, athe- 
ists, communists, and heretics. If I never were, 
her inherent spirit of truth is able to defend her; 
her purity, sanctity, and charity are self-efficient 
against the sneers and attacks of these men. The 



74 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

history of the world for eighteen hundred years 
attests the fact that she has braved persecution in 
every form, and kept her prow towards the East, 
towards heaven, towards God, without being ship- 
wrecked, because the Eternal Word worked her 
helm, and steered her safely over the shoals and 
sand-bars of infidelity. 

My negative philosopher said that " Christians, 
in accepting the statement that the body of Christ 
was generated outside and independent of the 
natural order of generation, accept a scientific ab- 
surdity ; if it be admitted, as it is, that Jesus Christ 
was man, it must be admitted, also, that He had a 
father in the natural order, as other men have had, 
and, therefore, He is not God." 

The glorious, awful, and unfathomable incarna- 
tion of the Eternal Word, who came into the visi- 
ble world to redeem the fallen race, and create a 
mystic union between them and Himself, is reject- 
ed by my scientist ; because in his judgment it is 
repugnant to the natural order of generation. If 
his mind were illumined by the light of pure 
reason and divine faith, he could see that the 
natural and supernatural, the visible and invisible 
orders are ruled by one law — God. As I said be- 
fore, the physical laws of nature do not rule God 
as they do men, but He rules them, because He 
framed them, and hence, if He so willed, He could 



The Supernatural Generation of Christ. 75 

hurl physical nature and its laws into the abyss of 
primitive chaos. The interruptions of the physical 
laws of nature, mentioned in the Old Testament, 
adverted to and bespoke of their interruption in 
the Incarnation of the Word. The Eternal Word 
could not, from His inconceivable purity and holi- 
ness, enter into or abide in a degraded prison- 
house cursed with sin, and therefore, in the eternal 
decree of God, this prison-house, Mary, whose 
blood by the power of the Word was to form the 
body of Christ, was exempt from the curse of 
Adam's sin. 

It is of faith, because defined by the Council of 
Chalcedon, held on the 8th of October, a.d. 451, 
" that our Lord Jesus Christ is perfect in divinity 
and perfect in humanity, true God and true man ; 
possessing a reasonable soul and a body ; consub- 
stantial with the Father in divinity, and consub- 
stantial with us in humanity; like to us in every- 
thing except sin ; begotten of the Father before all 
ages, as to His divinity; in these last times born 
of the Virgin Mary, as to His humanity, for us 
and for our salvation; one and the same Jesus 
Christ, only Son, Lord, in two natures, without 
confusion, without change, without division, with- 
out separation ; in whom this union hinders not 
the difference of natures ; on the contrary, pre- 
served to each what is its own, they meet in one 



76 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

single person, in one hypostasis; so that Jesus 
Christ is not divided into two persons, but is one 
and the same Lord, the Word, the only Son of 
God." * 

That our Lord Jesus Christ is true man and true 
God is clearly proved from Scripture. St. John 
says : " In the beginning was the Word, and the 
Word was with God, and the Word was God. The 
same was in the beginning with God ; all things 
were made by Him ; and without Him was made 
nothing that was made. . . . And the Word was 
made flesh, and dwelt among us ; and we saw His 
glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the 
Father, full of grace and truth. " f 

Here St. John tells us that the Word was in the 
beginning, was coeternal with God, and was God ; 
that in His actions ad extra, He created all things ; 
that by becoming man He did not lay aside His 
divine nature, but, remaining what He had been 
throughout all eternity, assumed to Himself hu- 
man nature without human personality, and that 
the union of His twofold nature formed His per- 
sonality. From this I conclude that the divine 
nature of our Lord Jesus is one and the same with 
the Father and the Holy Spirit, and that His 
human nature is one and the same with us, except 

* Concilium Chal. sess. v. f John i. I, 2, 3, 14. 



The Mystery of the Trinity. yy 

sin and a tendency to sin. Therefore Jesus Christ 
is true God and true man. 

The angel who was sent to obtain the consent 
of Mary to become the Mother of God said to 
her, " The holy one that shall be born of thee shall 
be called the Son of God." * This is proof that 
Christ was true man. Christ our Lord says of 
Himself, as God, " I and the Father are one ;" f 
that is, one with and equal to the Father in eternal 
being, essence, nature and power, and, therefore, 
true God. In another place he says, " I go to 
the Father, for the Father is greater than I." 
This is proof of his humanity, and therefore he is 
true man. 

The mystery of the most Holy Trinity, the basis 
and foundation of the Christian religion, is next 
assailed with ridicule which I dare not give here, 
because it breathed a spirit of blasphemy : that 
because human reason, clouded by sin and vitiated 
by error, cannot comprehend the Blessed Trinity 
with the same certainty that it can the laws of 
motion and the magnitude of physical objects in 
the visible world, " therefore" belief in the Trinity 
must be rejected. As the " therefore" is impiously 
false it must be rejected, while faith in the exist- 
ence of one God and three Divine Persons must 

* Luke i. 35. t John x. 30, xiv. 28. 



78 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

be professed by every Christian under pain of 
eternal loss. The following is a synoptic speci- 
men of the readable " argument" that attempted 
to wipe the Blessed Trinity out of existence. 

" Sir," said my novice in theology, " I presume 
you are a tritheist.' , I am neither a deist, a trithe- 
ist, nor a polytheist. " Do you mean to tell me 
you are not a tritheist?" I do. "Well, this is 
very strange." Not so very. " Is not the Father 
God ?" Yes. " Is not the Son God ?" Yes. " Is 
not the Holy Ghost God ?" Yes. " Then are 
there not three Gods ?" No ; there is but one God, 
who will reward the just and punish the wicked. 
" I do not care about reward or punishment. 
Unless my hearing has deceived me, you admitted 
the Trinity to be composed of three Gods." I 
made no such admission. " It is hard to argue 
with you." Not so very, if you could only use 
your intellect to better advantage. " If the three 
sides of a triangle be but one side, I cannot accept 
this as forming a triangle." You cannot; a tri- 
angle must have three equal sides, otherwise it 
will not be an equilateral triangle. " From your 
argument, I therefore deduce the conclusion that 
there must be three Gods in the Trinity." 

Neither geometrical axioms, general or special, 
theorems nor problems, can give the mind an ap- 
prehension of the Blessed Trinity without the 



The Mystery of the Trinity, jg 

light of divine faith ; through this, and this alone, 
the dogma of the Trinity is apprehended, as are 
the other mysteries of revealed religion. 

St. Augustin says, " No one can enter into 
truth unless by charity," and a later writer says, 
" The religious feeling is the beginning of the 
development of reason." From these it is clear 
that when there is neither charity nor religious 
feeling there can be no apprehension of the Trin- 
ity. St. Thomas says : " The highest perfection 
to which man can arrive consists in the full knowl- 
edge of God, and that he can only obtain it by the 
teaching of God who perfectly knows Himself."** 
Of God's immensity and impenetrable depth holy 
Job had a clear conception, who said : " Behold, 
God is great, exceeding our knowledge ; the num- 
ber of his years is inestimable." f The prophet 
Jeremias says: " O most mighty, great, and pow- 
erful, The Lord of hosts, is thy name ; great in 
counsel and incomprehensible in thought.""]: 
Again holy Job says : " God is higher than the 
heavens, and what wilt thou do ? He is deeper 
than hell, and how wilt thou know it? The mea- 
sure of him is longer than the earth and broader 
than the sea." § 

* Quaest. xiv., De Fide, art. 10. 

t Job xxxvi. 26. % J er - xxxii, 18, 19. § Job xi. 8, 9. 



80 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

From these it will be seen how utterly foolish 
scientists are who attempt to reason on the Blessed 
Trinity as they would on a geometrical theorem. 

It is of Catholic faith, because defined by the 
Athanasian Creed and the' Fourth Council of Lat- 
eran,"* that in one God there are three Persons : 
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; really 
distinct the one from the other ; equal in essence, 
in eternal being, in power, immensity, and perfec- 
tion, because these three Persons are one and the 
same in divine nature, and therefore, are one God ; 
that the Father, or first Person, proceeded from no 
cause, was not created nor begotten ; that the 
Son, who is of the Father, was neither created nor 
made, but begotten ; consubstantial with the Fa- 
ther, God of God, Light of Light, by whom all 
things in the visible and invisible worlds were 
created ; that the Holy Ghost is the spiration of 
the Father and Son, not made, not created, not 
begotten, but proceeded from them ; that He is 
coequal, coeternal with the Father and Son, and, 
therefore, is one and the same with them, and that 
these three Persons are but one God. 

God said, " Let us make man to our image 
and likeness." f This language conveys the idea 
of oneness in the Godhead and plurality of Per- 

* Con. Lateranensi IV. cap. Firmiter. f Gen, i. 26. 



The Mystery of the Trinity. 81 

sons. The same idea is conveyed in the third 
chapter of Genesis, in which God, the Father, says, 
" Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing 
good and evil." * Christ says : " And I will ask the 
Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, 
that He may abide with you for ever ; the Spirit of 
Truth, whom the world cannot receive; because it 
seeth Him not, nor knoweth Him/ , + Again he 
says: "But when the Paraclete cometh, whom I 
will send you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, 
who proceedeth from the Father, he shall give 
testimony of me. And you shall give testimony 
of me ; because you are with me from the begin- 
ning." % Does not this language, uttered by eter- 
nal Truth, prove that there are three distinct Per- 
sons in one God ? Christ, the second Person of 
the Blessed Trinity, who is speaking to His Apos- 
tles, tells them that He will ask the Father, the 
first Person, to send down to them the Para- 
clete, the third Person. In another place He said 
to His Apostles, " Going, therefore, teach ye all 
nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." § This 
commission given to the Apostles by their Divine 
Master proves that there are in the Godhead three 
distinct Persons equal in essence, eternal being, 

*Gen. iii. 22. f John xiv. 16, 17. 

% John xv. 26, 27. § Matt, xxviii. 19. 



82 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

and power. The conjunction " and M points out 
distinctly the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity, 
while the words "in the name of" attribute to 
them the efficacy of the sacrament of baptism. 
That the three divine Persons are one God is 
proved from the following words of our Blessed 
Lord, who says : " There are three that give testi- 
mony in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost: and these three are ONE."* St. Paul says : 
" The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the 
charity of God, and the communication of the 
Holy Ghost be with you all." f St. Matthew says : 
"Jesus, being baptized, forthwith came out of 
the water, and He saw the Spirit of God descend- 
ing, as a dove, and coming upon Him ; and, behold, 
a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased." % 

From the Scriptural proofs advanced it will be 
seen that the Person of the Father is distinct from 
the Person of the Son : that the Person of the Son 
is distinct from the Person of the Holy Ghost, and 
that the Person of the Holy Ghost is distinct from 
the Person of the Father and Son, and therefore 
there are three divine Persons in the Blessed 
Trinity. Although these Persons are distinct 
from each other, yet they have one and the same 

* I John v. 7. f 2 Cor. xiii. 13. % Matt. iii. 16, 17. 



The Mystery of the Trinity. 83 

divine nature, one and the same essence, and 
therefore are one and the same God. 

" If God be personal, and He is, according to the 
proof advanced," said my scientist, " it follows 
from the laws of reason that He must be a limited 
being, and therefore not a self-existing one." 

How prone atheistic " philosophers" are to 
negative conclusions whenever God is spoken of ! 
When I stated that one God is threefold in Per- 
son, and that each of these Persons is but one and 
the same God, I did not confine Him within the 
limits of human personality. I used the term 
person, to express the modus existendi of the triune 
Deity. 

The term " person," can be applied to a self- 
existing being as well as to a contingent one, 
without reducing the self-existing to the condition 
of a dependent being. This we learn from God 
Himself, who said of Himself, I am who am. He 
expressed the personality of the Blessed Trinity 
when He said, Let us make man to -our own image 
and likeness. I have said more than once that as 
physical science works within a limited range, it 
should not meddle with metaphysical or theologi- 
cal questions. The moment a scientist departs 
from his proper sphere of research, by attempting 
to become a theologian, he is hopelessly lost in 
the labyrinth his surmises evoked, out of which he 



84 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

will not extricate himself, unless he be aided by 
the light of divine faith. 

" Suppose,'* said my disputant, " I grant, for 
sake of argument, the dogma of the Trinity. I 
want to know in what the Virgin is superior to 
any of her sex. Is it not true that Roman Catho- 
lics pay her the worship which belongs to God? 
In proof of this, can an altar be found in a Roman 
Catholic church without a Mary-idol, before which 
worshippers kneel, pray, and genuflect ? What is 
this but the worship of idols, which is repugnant 
to science and the dignity of reason?" 

It sounds strange to hear men who worship 
brute matter charge Catholics with idolatry. But 
so it is, " for the malice of those who hate God as- 
cendeth forever." Although the charge of Mary- 
worship is as old as heresy, and although it has 
been refuted ten thousand times, yet it is hurled 
at Catholics to-day, with as much malignity as it 
was in the days of St. Augustin. From this it will 
be seen that heretics change, but heresy never. 

If an ardent desire actuated the mind of my 
friend to ascertain the truth or falsity of the im- 
putation, then, indeed, I would gladly aid him in 
his effort ; but when I know that this trite objec- 
tion, without a foundation to rest upon, is flung at 
me through hatred to God and revealed religion, 
I find it difficult to refute it in dignified language. 



Superiority of the Blessed Virgin. 85 

My physicist, being a good mathematician, took it 
as axiomatic that the Blessed Virgin was no better 
than any other of her sex, and that those who 
kneel, pray, or genuflect before an altar adorned 
with a statue representing her were guilty of 
idolatry. The conclusion is drawn from vicious 
premises, and is therefore false. Although the 
Blessed Virgin was a finite being composed of 
body and soul as other women are, yet she was 
as far superior to them as truth is to error. The 
vast superiority of the Virgin over all other 
women followed from the fact that she was the 
spotless Mother of the Eternal Word. The stu- 
pendous dignity of Mary, by being made the 
Deipara, is so inconceivably great, so deep and 
impenetrable, that the Christian soul while con- 
templating it is lost in the depth of the mystery. 
Mary, by being chosen the Mother of the Logos, 
was not only raised above all other women, but 
above angels, archangels, and the highest created 
powers of heaven. 

After the earth was fitted for human beings to 
abide on, God, in the language of the Blessed Trin- 
ity, said, " Let us make man after Our own image 
and likeness, and God created man to His image, 
male and female He created them/' * Eve was no 

*Gen. i. 26, 27. 



86 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

sooner created than God enriched her soul with 
supernatural gifts which induced the indwelling of 
the Holy Ghost in her heart and rendered her 
will conformable to the will of her Creator. These 
perfections, which constituted her original justice, 
made her so beautiful in soul and body that the 
principle of external evil envied her happy state, 
and hence laid plans to rob her of her supernatu- 
ral perfections. In these the devil was but too 
successful, for she lent a willing ear to his sugges- 
tions and fell. As Eve before her fall foreshad- 
owed Mary, the second Eve, can we not with truth 
assert that Mary was endued with perfections 
similar to those which Eve forfeited by her trans- 
gression ? Have we any evidence of this ? Yes. 
It is partly expressed in the promise of redemp- 
tion and in the angelical salutation, " I will put 
enmities between thee and the woman, and thy 
seed and her seed ; and she shall crush thy head, 
and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel."* In this 
promise Mary, with the Logos, was announced to 
the human race as the medium of redemption. By 
this language I do not intend to convey the idea 
that Mary/^r^was the medium of redemption; 
but inasmuch as she was the Mother of the Eter- 
nal Word "made flesh," who bridged the chasm 

*Gen. iii. 15. 



Superiority of the Blessed Virgin, 87 

that separated man from God, she was connected 
with Him in the grand work of redemption, and 
therefore was superior to all other women. In 
this promise of redemption the future Mother of 
the Redeemer is held up to the gaze of mankind 
four thousand years before her birth as the indi- 
vidual who was to crush the serpent's head. Now 
the law of logic demands that a person who is del- 
egated to perform a certain thing must be endowed 
with the power to accomplish this, otherwise the 
delegated authority would have no result. But as 
Mary was destined by the Almighty to crush the 
serpent's head, it follows that she herself was not 
under the curse of sin. 

On this St. Bernard says : " Rejoice, O father 
Adam, and thou, O mother Eve, be comforted, for 
a daughter [the Blessed Virgin] is born that will 
take away your reproach, and the man shall no 
longer- have reason cruelly to accuse the woman, 
because if man fell by woman he cannot be raised 
up unless by woman. What sayest thou, O 
Adam ? The woman whom thou gavest gave me of 
the tree, and I did eat. These are words of malice 
' which rather increase than cancel thy fault. But 
change now the word of guilty excuse into thanks- 
giving and say, Lord, the woman thou gavest to 
me gave me of the tree of life, and I did eat, and it 



88 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

is sweeter than honey to my tongue, because in it 
Thou hast given me eternal life."* 

The Blessed Virgin could not take away the 
reproach of Adam and Eve " if she were no better 
than any other woman ;" for the same reason she 
could not give of the Tree of Life, which could not 
take root and bear fruit in a sandy, barren desert 
cursed by sin. But she did give to Adam of the 
Tree, and by the act took away his reproach, and 
therefore was superior to all other women. 

As the Eternal Word was to take a human body 
from Mary, He called her into existence adorned 
with all the grace and virtue within His giving that 
a finite creature could receive. This is true, be- 
cause from eternity He decreed to receive His 
humanity from her, and hence He looked upon 
it as a duty incumbent upon Him to exempt from 
original sin, to sanctify and enrich with spirit- 
ual delights, the Tabernacle in which He was 
to abide for nine months. Certainly Almighty 
God who adorned the heavens with countless 
brilliants of marvellous beauty, who imparted 
to the earth untold wealth, did not neglect to 
decorate the soul of Mary with supernatural 
decorations, in whose chaste bosom He was to 
pillow for nine months. No. He loved His 



Horn. ii. super Missus est. 



Superiority of the Blessed Virgin. 89 

Naomi too deeply to neglect this, and therefore He 
showered upon her celestial wealth so rich, so at- 
tractive, that the most exalted spirits in heaven 
exclaimed in accents of wonder, " Who is she that 
cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the 
moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in 
array ?" * 

The birth of Mary announced to the human race 
the speedy entrance of Him into time and space 
whose light would illumine a world on which the 
darkness of sin had heavily settled since the dawn 
of man's fall. Almighty Power had no sooner set 
the Morning Star in the firmament of humanity 
than joy and hope filled the hearts of the holy 
ones of Israel, who knew by divine inspiration that 
she was the harbinger of Him who would usher in 
the long-desired day of salvation. In her birth 
they saw their proximity to the possession of a 
good which the faithful prayed for during four 
thousand years, and therefore their joy knew no 
bounds. 

The second Eve, chosen out of the daughters of 
Israel to be the Mother of God, resplendent with 
the gifts of nature and grace, directs her way to 
the temple to dedicate herself to the service of 
God. This she did that she might the more easily 

*Cant. vi. 9. 



go A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

hold uninterrupted converse with Him whom her 
soul desired. Within this holy enclosure she re- 
signed her will to that of God and learned His 
secrets. From her constant meditation on heaven 
and God, her pure soul became fully expanded in 
the supernatural, so much so, that at a glance she 
apprehended God with a clearness of spiritual 
vision unknown to the greatest saints. As her 
soul was never darkened by original or actual sin, 
it was calm, pure, and holy, and hence sought the 
glory of God in its operations. The presence of 
the Holy Ghost in her heart by efficacious grace 
rendered her humble, patient, meek, chaste, heroic, 
and charitable. From these it followed that she 
was terrible to the powers of darkness as an army 
set in array. From this holy enclosure, like Noe 
from the Ark, she looked upon the troubled sea of 
humanity, and sent out the dove of sighs, prayers, 
and tears to the Most High to lessen, to abate this 
sinful deluge which covered the earth. She was 
heard ! God, in His infinite mercy, sent the angel 
Gabriel to obtain her consent to become the Dei- 
para, who saluted her with " Hail, full of grace, 
the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among 
women." * In this salutation the heavenly am- 
bassador declared explicitly Mary's superiority 
over all other women. 

* Luke i. 28, 



Superiority of the Blessed Virgin, 9 1 

After Mary signified her willingness to the angel 
to become the Mother of God, and after the 
" Word was made flesh," she went to visit Eliza- 
beth. " Exurgens autem Maria, abiit in mon- 
tana cum festinatione." 'Why did she go to the 
hill country ? From an impulse of charity which 
was her characteristic virtue. She went to teach 
us that we must not have charity for our neighbor 
on our lips, but in our hearts. She went that the 
Precursor might be sanctified in the womb of His 
mother through the presence of the " Word made 
flesh" in her womb. 

For Mary now the world had no charms since 
she possessed the Creator of the world in her 
sacred womb. As Moses, after having descended 
from the mountain, gave evidence that he con- 
versed with God face to face, so did Mary that she 
possessed Him. This the calm, thoughtful, mild 
expression of her countenance reflected ; this her 
chaste vision and holy language expressed ; this 
Elizabeth testified when she said to Mary, " Bless- 
ed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit 
of thy womb." To whom Mary replied in the 
following prophetic language, " My soul doth 
magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced 
in God my Saviour. Because He hath regard- 
ed the humility of His handmaid ; for behold, 



92 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

from henceforth all generations shall call me 
blessed: '* 

St. Cyril of Alexandria says, " The dignity of 
Mother of God, ©eoroxos, is the highest and great- 
est to which any creature can be raised." f St. Je- 
rome says, "Joseph, knowing the Virgin's chastity, 
while admiring what had happened, suppressed in 
silence a mystery he did not comprehend/' X St. 
Anselm says, " O man, attend and be transported 
in ecstatic astonishment ; the infinite God had but 
one-begotten, coeternal Son, yet He would not 
allow Him to remain His own, but would have 
Him also to be made the only Son of Mary."§ St. 
Epiphanius says, " Mary is superior to all created 
beings, except Christ as man, that she is more 
lovely in the kingdom of God than cherubim, 
Seraphim, and the whole angelic choirs." The 
Bull promulgating the dogma of the Immaculate 
Conception declared that Mary, in the first mo- 
ment of her conception, was, by Almighty Power, 
free from and preserved from every stain of 
original sin. From these it will be seen what holy 
and exalted ideas were entertained of the Blessed 
Virgin in the early ages of the Church. It will be 
seen, too, that these views harmonize with those 



*Luke i. 46-48. t Cyr. Alex. i. 8, contra Julian, 

tjer. Op. imp. in Matt. cap. 1. § Ansel. Monol. 



The Worship of the Blessed Virgin. 93 

entertained of the Mother of God by the faithful 
of the present day, and yet, in the face of this evi- 
dence, scientists have the effrontery to assert that 
"she is no better than any of her sex." 

But it has been charged that Catholics " pay the 
Virgin the worship that belongs to God, and 
therefore are guilty of idolatry." The proof of 
this is based on the fact that " Catholics have been 
seen to kneel, genuflect, and pray before an altar 
on which is placed a statue of the Virgin." 

Now, in mild language let me ask, What right 
have men who worship, as I said before, dead 
matter, and who reject the existence of God and 
the immortality of the soul, to falsify and criticise 
with cynical asperity the prayerful attitude of 
Catholics before an altar adorned with a statue of 
the Madonna? Do not truth and charity demand 
that these men suspend the expression of a judg- 
ment injurious to their fellow-creatures till they 
become satisfied, through truthful testimony, that 
the charge they prefer is true? But as this honest 
and charitable course is extraneous to error, which 
has neither mind to understand, ears to hear, nor 
eyes to see what belongs to men in their relation 
with true* religion, it deduces conclusions from 
hearsay which are of no force because untrue. 

Catholics do not any more worship the Blessed 
Virgin than they do the sun or moon ; they worship 



94 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

God alone, and venerate the Vessel of Election 
who clothed the Logos with virginal flesh. 
Through the light of divine faith Catholics appre- 
hend the real, actual presence of the Son of God 
on the altars of the Church, under the sacramental 
veils of bread and wine, and, agreeable to this 
belief, genuflect, assume a prayerful attitude before 
Him, pay Him adoration and not to the statue, 
which can neither hear nor help them. 

" But why was it placed there at all ?" Although 
infidelity has no right to put this question, yet I 
shall answer it. A statue of the Blessed Virgin is 
placed on an altar of the Catholic Church for orna- 
ment, and through respect to the Deipara, who 
during life was the undefiled temple of the Holy 
Ghost; it is placed there to remind the faithful of 
the pure, holy, and austere life the Mystical Rose 
led while " in the way ;" it is placed there to im- 
press on the minds of true Christians the fact that 
since she was crowned Queen of heaven by her 
divine Son, she is next to Him in power and glory. 

If a mother lose by death a member of her 
family, does she not carefully keep and venerate 
the photograph of her departed one ? Does she 
not from time to time, through an impulse of 
natural affection, examine it, bedew it with tears, 
and dilate on the virtues of him whom it repre- 
sents? Yes, this is the order of civil society, and 



The Worship of the Blessed \ Virgin. 95 

is praiseworthy because it is an expression of 
natural affection inherent in a mother's heart. If 
Catholics, from supernatural motives, give expres- 
sion to their love and veneration for the pictures 
of the Redeemer, the Virgin, and saints, is there 
anything wrong in it ? No ; because it is an act 
elicited by supernatural love, and, like the natural 
act of the mother, is praiseworthy. Can Catholics 
who venerate statues or pictures representing the 
Redeemer, the Virgin, or saints be charged with 
idolatry? Not any more than the mother can 
who venerates the photograph of her deceased 
child. The outward veneration and respect paid 
by Catholics to pictures representing the Redeem- 
er, the Virgin, and saints manifest the inward love 
that produced these, and nothing more. Through 
religious pictures Catholics are reminded of the 
austere and holy lives the saints led whom they 
represent ; they are also encouraged to model 
their conduct after that of the saints, in order that 
they may receive similar rewards. 

Idolatry consists in paying the creature the 
worship that belongs to the Creator, an act which 
Catholics have not been guilty of since the days 
of Julian the Apostate/ 

The Council of Trent teaches that "the images 
of the Redeemer, the Virgin, and saints are to be 
retained in churches, and that due veneration be 



96 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

paid to them not because they have inherent in them 
any divine virtue, but because of the originals they 
represent." * 

" But Catholics pray to the Virgin." Catholics 
implore the Help of Christians and the saints to 
intercede for them with God, and nothing more. 
They are well aware that neither the Blessed 
Virgin of herself, nor the saints, can help them ; 
but they do believe, from the relation of Mother 
and Son, that Jesus will not refuse any request 
His spotless Mother may ask of Him, and hence 
the faithful petition Mary to obtain from her divine 
Son grace to subdue their passions, to trample on 
the world, and to arrive safely in the heavenly 
Jerusalem. In this, as we shall see further on, 
there is nothing wrong. 

Now, if God gives to the generous giver "good 
measure and pressed down," f how overflowing 
measure must not Mary receive, who was pre- 
eminent for charity, purity, and sanctity above 
the angels and saints! If the "prayer of the just 
man availeth much," if the faith of Abraham, the 
patience of Job, the fidelity of Samuel, the piety 
of David, and the meekness of Moses deserved 
approval and reward, how much more so the faith, 
patience, fidelity, piety, and meekness of Mary, 

* Sess. xxxv. f Luke vi. 38. 



The Worship of the Blessed Virgin. 9 7 

"full of grace"! If Moses turned the battle against 
Amalec in favor of the Hebrews by uplifting his 
hands, why cannot Mary turn our battle with the 
world, the , flesh, and the devil in our favor ? If 
Josue by prayer command the sun to stand still, 
cannot the Queen of heaven obtain of God grace 
to render our passions passive and obedient to 
reason ? If Moses brought water from a barren 
rock through the efficacy of prayer, cannot the 
Refuge of Sinners bring back the prodigal son 
from the desert of sin into the sanctuary of God 
to partake of one GOOD which contains every 
good? If Eliseus through prayer raised to life 
the dead child of the Sunamitess, cannot the Help 
of Christians, through her intercession with her 
Son, raise to a life of grace those of her children 
who may have squandered their inheritance in sin- 
ful pursuits? Why deny the Queen of heaven 
intercessory power which has been exercised by 
individuals less worthy than she since the dawn of 
man's creation ? Not only does God listen to and 
grant the petitions of the Blessed Virgin, but that 
of those who serve and love Him. " The eyes of 
the Lord are upon the just, and His ears unto their 
prayers." 

But it was " scientifically" said that since " there 
were no telephones in operation between God, 
the saints, and Catholics, the former, owing to 



98 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

distance, could not hear the petitions of the lat- 
ter." 

If my scientists were in existence when their 
" neBular system" was operative, they would no 
doubt have instructed " the rings" to build tele- 
phones; but as they were not, of course we have 
no telephonic communication with the saints. Al- 
though this is the case, yet Catholics communicate 
with God, the Blessed Virgin, and saints through a 
medium my atheistic friends are entirely ignorant 
of. 

To communicate with God, Catholics need no 
telephones, for the reason that He is ubiquitous ; 
on earth He sees and knows the spiritual wants of 
those who fear, love, and serve Him, hears and 
grants their prayers. In heaven He is a mirror of 
infinite reflecting powers, in which the saints see 
our spiritual wants and hasten to obtain them of 
Him. Besides, there are legions of pure intelli- 
gences who, by divine appointment, watch over 
us while we are "in the way," present our peti- 
tions to God, whom they " see face to face," and 
bring us back grace by which we are enabled to 
obtain our last end. Than this there is no fact 
better authenticated in the Holy Scriptures. The 
angel who spoke to Moses in the name of God 
from the Burning Bush carried the prayers of the 
persecuted Hebrews to God who delivered them 



The Worship of the Blessed Virgin. 99 

out of bondage. At the prayer of Lazarus, God 
sent Abraham to conduct his soul to eternal bliss, 
and at the prayer of Daniel, who was " a man of 
desires," He sent His angels to rescue him from 
the lion's den and fiery furnace. God Himself 
says, " Behold, I will send My angel, who shall go 
before thee, and keep thee in thy journey, and 
bring thee into the place that I have prepared. 
Take notice of him and hear his voice, and do not 
think him one to be contemned ; for he will not 
forgive when thou hast sinned, and my name is in 
him."* When Elias fled from the impious Jezabel 
into the desert, God sent an angel with food to 
him, which was a figure of the Bread of Life we 
daily receive in the adorable Sacrament of the 
altar. " And the angel of the Lord came again the 
second time, and touched him, and said to him, 
Arise, eat, for thou hast yet a great way to go."f 
Christ says, " If ye abide in Me, and My words 
abide in you, ye shall ask whatever ye will, and 
it shall be done to you." Now, whom did Christ 
ever abide in as He did in Mary, and who ever 
abode in Him, through efficacious grace, as she 
did ? From the moment she dawned into existence 
to the close of her life, she abode in God by 
purity, sanctity, and holiness of action, which so 

* Exod. xxiii. 20, 21. f III Kings xix. 7. 



ioo A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

endeared her to Him that He inundated her soul 
with a sea of supernatural delights. How effica- 
cious, then, must be the intercession of Mary 
with her Son on our behalf, since He has willed to 
grant her whatever she may ask conducive to our 
salvation ! At the marriage feast of Cana and 
Galilee, when the wine gave out, Jesus at a 
whisper from Mary performed a great miracle by 
changing water into wine. If He performed this 
wonder at the request of His Mother while on 
earth, what great favors must He not grant her in 
His own kingdom of which she is Queen ! When 
the angel Raphael made himself known to Tobias 
and his son, he said, I will not hide the secret 
from you : " when thou didst pray with tears, and 
didst bury the dead, and didst leave thy dinner, 
and hide the dead by day in thy house, and bury 
them by night, I offered thy prayers to the Lord. 
And because thou wast acceptable to God, it was 
necessary that temptation should prove thee."* 
There is no dogma of revealed religion more ex- 
plicitly established in the Bible than the com- 
munion of saints. Those who lived during the 
Jewish dispensation understood and accepted 
it as we do to-day. It is the doctrine of the 
Church since the very dawn of her existence ; for 

* Tob. xii. 12, 13. 



The Worship of the Blessed Virgin. 101 

St. Ignatius, who flourished in the second century, 
says, " My spirit be your expiation, not only now, 
but when I shall have attained to God."* Clem- 
ent of Alexandria says, " The perfect Christian 
also prays with angels ; nor is he ever out of their 
holy guardianship : even though he may pray alone, 
he has the choir of the holy ones standing by ." \ 
Origen says, " Who doubts that the saints assist 
us by their prayers?" Quis dubitat quod sancti 
orationibus nos juvent ? He further says, " All 
things are filled with angels. Come, O angel, re- 
ceive him who has been converted by the Word 
from former error, from the doctrine of demons ; 
. . . for there is greater joy in heaven over one sin- 
ner that doth penitence than over ninety-jiine just 
who need not penitence." % St. Dionysius of Alex- 
andria says, " Be we then, by our prayers, help- 
ers of one another, and let us entreat, as you have 
charged us, that we may have God, Christ, and 
the angels our supporters in all our actions." Ut 
Deum et Christum, et angelos i?z omnibus actibus nos- 
tris habeamus fautores.% Eusebius, who flourished 
in the fourth century, says, " We have learnt from 
the instructions of His Word that there are, after 
the Supreme God (Metd), certain powers of an 



*Igna. Ep. ad Trail., n. 13. f Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. vii. p. 879. 
fOp. Orig. t. iii. Horn, in Ezech. n. 7. § Dion. Alex. ep. ixxviii. 



102 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

incorporeal nature, intellectual, rational, and re- 
plete with virtue, that move with joy around the 
universal King, many of whom, by the will of the 
Father, are sent even unto men." * St. Hilary 
says, " There are, as Raphael says to Tobias, 
angels that stand before the brightness of God, and 
that carry the prayers of suppliants unto God." 
Orat tones deprecantium ad Deum defer rntes.j- In 
another place he says, " The authority is absolute 
that angels preside over the prayers of the faithful." 
Fidelium orationibus prceesse angelos,. absoluta auc- 
toritas est.% St. Ephraem says, "Accept, O Lord, 
the supplications of thy servant, by the intercession 
of the saints who have been well pleasing unto 
Thee."§ St. Ephraem further says, "And now, 
ye saints, intercede in behalf of a sinner who 
sleeps during the time of His bounty, that he may 
find mercy in that hour when the hidden things of 
man shall be made manifest. ... It is a work for 
you, O ye saints, to intercede for sinners ; it is 
God's work to have pity on those whose state is 
desperate, and to lead them into the number of 



* Eus. Dem. Evang. 1. iii. p. 107. 
f Hil. Tract, cxxix. n. vii. p. 494. 
% Id. Comm. in Matt. cap. xviii. p. 758. 

§ npsdfieicaS roar ayioov tgqv evape6rj6arTGDvioi. Eph. 
Syr. t. i. de Poenit p. 153. 



The Worship of the Blessed Virgin. 10 



o 



His flock in Christ Jesus our Lord."* St. Am- 
brose says, " The angels, who have been given to 
us for our protection, are to be invoked in our be- 
half ; the martyrs, on whom we have a claim by a 
sort of pledge delivered from the body, are to be 
invoked. Then let us not be ashamed to employ 
these martyrs as intercessors for our infirmity." j 
St. Proclus, a Greek writer who flourished in the 
beginning of the fifth century (a.d. 438), says, 
" Though Abel is famed on account of his sacri- 
fice, Enoch is commemorated for having been well- 
pleasing to God, Melchisedech is announced as 
God's image, still they were not so great as Mary 
the Mother of God. Go through the earth, exam- 
ine the sea, search the heavens, consider the invisi- 
ble powers, and you will find no such marvel as 
Mary. . . . Through her all women are blessed. 
The female sex is no longer an execration. . . . 
Eve has been healed, and Mary is venerated 
(IIpoZuvvsiTai Mapia) because she has become 
Mother and servant, cloud and chamber, and ark 
of the Lord ; for this cause let us implore her 

INTERCESSION." X 



* Eph., t. iii. Gr. Repreh. sui ipsius, p. 454. 

f Obsecrandi sunt angeli pro nobis, qui nobis ad presidium dati 
sunt; martyres obsecrandi (t. ii. De Viduis, c. ix.). 
% Or. v. p. 629. 



I04 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

From these extracts it will be seen that in all 
ages of the Church the belief existed that the 
Mother of God, the angels and saints who are in 
possession of eternal glory, hear our prayers and 
obtain from God grace to subdue the enemies of 
our souls. It will be further seen that as the 
members of the Church militant are aided by the 
prayers of those of the Church triumphant, so are 
the members of the Church suffering aided by the 
prayers and good works of the members of the 
Church militant. Then the Church of God has an 
existence in heaven, on earth, and in purgatory? 
Yes ; it exists triumphantly in heaven in the saints, 
who, while "in the way," fought heroically, con- 
quered the enemies of their souls, and, purified 
from the stains of sin, entered on the enjoyment 
of eternal happiness. It exists on earth in all those 
who belong to, believe in the one, holy, universal 
and apostolic Church ; in those who are yet in the 
field of battle, armed with the spiritual weapons 
left by the Redeemer to His Church. It exists in 
purgatory in those who departed this life in the 
friendship of God ; who were free from the eternal 
guilt of mortal sin, and were in communion with 
the one true Church. These so soon as they shall 
have satisfied Divine Justice for their sins, or so 
soon as the temporal punishment due to their sins 
is wiped out, will be admitted to membership in 



The Worship of the Blessed Virgin. 105 

the Church triumphant. Under this threefold 
consideration the Church of God has a triumphant, 
a militant, and a suffering existence. But this 
atheism will not admit. As it attempted to estab- 
lish the non-existence of God through false argu- 
ment, so has it, through the same medium, to 
establish the non-existence of the Church and 
purgatory. 

It asserted that " there are so many denomina- 
tions claiming a divine origin, whose creeds are so 
various and contradictory, that it is hard to find 
out the true Church, if any such at all there be ; 
that the Romish denomination, the most crafty of 
all, made for its followers a bread god, which it 
obliges them to worship and receive under penalty 
of being cut off from its communion ; that it has 
created a purgatory, or a half-way station between 
time and eternity, a middle term between heaven 
and hell, for the purpose of degrading human rea- 
son and of getting its hand into people's pockets ; 
that it has organized a successive body of priests 
for deceptive purposes, whom it wants society to 
receive as demi-gods, who are no better than any 
one else, but ; that these, with its many incen- 
tives to idolatry, make it the most objectionable of 
all creeds.- ' Lastly, " that in its imprisonment 
of Galileo it showed itself the enemy of science, 
and that in the massacre of the Huguenots on Bar- 



106 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

tholomew's Day it proved itself cruel and hostile 
towards religious freedom." 

From the nature of these charges it will be seen 
that my scientists were not well read in truthful 
history, and that they were poor, very poor, theo- 
logians. Although I have more than once refuted 
the counts set forth in this indictment, yet the duty 
devolves upon me to disprove them now, and 
bring atheism to shame for its bold mendacity. 



CHAPTER VI. 

DID OUR BLESSED LORD FOUND THE CATHOLIC 
CHURCH? CAN THE CHURCH TEACH ERROR? 
BY WHAT MARKS CAN SHE BE KNOWN? 

Before I answer these questions I will premise 
that true religion alone can suspend the lamp of 
faith in man's intellect, by the light of which he 
can see God and build a temple in his soul in 
which he can converse with Him. So soon as she 
erects her throne in his soul illuminated by faith, 
not dead but operative, she saturates his mind, his 
heart, and his whole being with supernatural good. 
Thenceforth all his actions and pursuits, whether 
mental or physical, are swayed by her sceptre. She 
paints to his intellect in true, intelligible colors the 
eternal being of God, His attributes, the consub- 
stantiality of the Persons of the Trinity, the sub- 
limity of the creative act, the variety of entities it 
evoked into esse, the hypostatic union of the divine 
with the human nature of Christ, the exemption 
of the Blessed Virgin from the curse of original 
sin, and the establishment of the Church, " the 
pillar and ground of truth." 

False religion can neither thoroughly penetrate 



108 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

man nor give his actions supernatural direction ; 
it cannot suspend the lamp of faith in his intellect, 
by the light of which he can know, love, and serve 
God, because, being of man, it is devoid of divine 
life and light. A man who professes false religion 
has no certainty of the doctrines he professes, and 
therefore does not feel that he is bound to believe 
them. However, inasmuch as they are the sickly 
offspring of human reason, he gives them fresh air 
by going to church to see and be seen on fine 
days. If called to an account for his faith, which 
he does not understand nor cares to understand, 
the glimpse he had of the Unseen, like a mirage, is 
gone from his mental vision, and he settles down 
in indifferentism. Although this is the case, yet 
he will speak, touchingly upon his religion, admit 
of its ministrations on special occasions, while in 
his heart he does not believe in God. He may be 
an Evangelical, an Anglican, a Rationalist, or 
whatever he pleases, provided he professes a re- 
ligion divorced from the heart and reason, which 
holds at discount and ridicules true religion. It is 
no wonder, then, that false religion generates pan- 
theists, atheists, and communists who ridicule re- 
vealed religion and place it below false religion. 

The assertion " that there are so many denomi- 
nations claiming a divine origin that it is hard to 
find out the true Church, if any at all there be," 



Did Oiir Lord Found the Church ? 109 

contains truth and falsehood. It is true that the 
various ramifications of Protestantism claim a 
divine origin, while it is untrue that it is difficult 
to find out the true Church. The heterogeneous 
elements which form the varieties of Protestantism 
have no claim whatever to a divine source, because 
they are the work of man, and therefore imper- 
fect. Ambition, avarice, and sensuality formed the 
combinations of heresy, which is as far remote 
from a divine origin as sin is. The components of 
this combination have no affinity for each other 
because devoid of assimilating qualities. Like 
atmospheric particles, they repel each other and 
can only be held in proximity by external force. 
The force which induces unity in the medley of 
Protestantism is hatred to revealed religion. This 
is the only energy that produces its unity, and this 
is the only unity that permeates its being. Why 
is this so? Because its various contradictory 
principles were evoked into being by the per- 
verted intellects of Montanus, Manes, Novatian, 
who were fanatical heretics in the early history of 
the Church, and of Luther, Calvin, Knox, and 
Latimer, who were heresiarchs in a later period 
of Church history. These men, who had no divine 
right to establish religion or teach supernatural 
truth, undertook to separate religion from life in 
order to make it more rational and spiritual, and 



1 1 o A Catholic Priest and Scientists, 

in order to separate it from what they called 
" popish mummery, " but failed. All they have 
left us in the shape of religion is an incongruous 
mass of private opinions repugnant to faith and 
reason. As the establishing of religion belongs to 
God alone, no man can usurp this prerogative 
without becoming a heretic ; and no man can 
teach his fellow-creature authoritatively unless he 
be divinely commissioned to do so. The religious 
discord of our age is consequent on the fact that 
men without authority teach religions which claim 
a divine origin, although built upon foundations 
purely human. Then, man needs a divine teacher? 
Yes. His fall from original justice necessitates 
one. So long as Adam remained faithful, Almighty 
God was his immediate teacher, but after his dis- 
obedience God, who ceased to be his immediate 
teacher, did not hand him over to the guidance of 
a fallible exponent of His will to him. Then, man 
in his fallen state requires a teacher clothed with 
divine authority to instruct him in his duty to- 
wards God and his neighbor? Most undoubtedly ; 
otherwise he could not know this, which he is 
bound to discharge under pain of eternal perdi- 
tion. Did Jesus Christ, before He ascended to His 
Father, leave any such teacher to mankind ? St. 
Paul answers this question by saying, " And some, 
indeed, he gave to be apostles, and some prophets, 



Marks of the True Church. 1 1 1 

and others evangelists, and others pastors and 
teachers that we may not now be children, tossed 
to and fro, and carried about with every wind of 
doctrine in the wickedness of men, by cunning 
craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive."* 
Can this authoritative exponent be seen and 
known? As easily as the sun in the firmament, 
for " it is fair as the morning rising, lovely as 
the moon, and bright as the sun." Its dazzling 
splendor distinguishes it as conspicuously from 
human authority as the sun is from the moon. 
Its holy garments, " purpled in the blood of the 
lamb," human authority could not put on any 
more than sin could sanctity, because they were 
woven by eternal Truth, and therefore, no effort 
of the human intellect could imitate them. Being 
of and in God, this divine exponent will never 
cease, so long as time exists, to shed the efful- 
gence of its light on fallen man, for whose bene- 
fit it was founded by Almighty Power. By what 
mark, then, can it be known ? By the mark of 
universality which no human organization could 
claim as its own since the days of the Apostles. + 



* Eph. iv. n-14. 

f For the benefit of those readers who may not have access to 
theological works, I will give connectedly the " marks and proper- 
ties" (notce et dates) of the Church in proving her divine origin. 



112 A Catholic Priest and Scientists, 

To the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church it 
belongs to extend her spiritual dominion over the 
habitable globe, by reason of her divine mission. 
Her children are those of every clime and lan- 
guage, who constitute the mystic body of Jesus 
Christ and form His spiritual kingdom on earth, of 
which He is the life, the light, and invisible head. 

To be a member of this mystic body one must 
profess faith in the Son of God, and believe that 
whatever he has revealed is true, because He is 
the source of all truth, and therefore, cannot de- 
ceive. Moreover, one must not only implicitly 
believe and explicitly profess what God has re- 
vealed is true, but he must accept whatever the 
Church of God proposes for his belief or the 
belief of her children. 

Faith is twofold, human and divine. Human 
faith is that which is founded on the testimony of 
man ; divine is that which is based on the testi- 
mony of God. The certitude of human faith is 
acquired by the scrutiny of the intellect, which 
must have its information from a truthful source ; 
the certitude of divjne faith is had by the infusion 
of divine light into the soul by the Almighty, who 
bestows it on those who ardently desire it. As we 
have already seen how faith is infused into the 
soul and how it is developed, it is not necessary to 
say any more on its infusion or development here. 



Marks of the True Church. 1 1 3 

As the certainty obtained by the exercise of natural 
reason is human, it is not always free from error 
owing to its finite source, which, if truthful, will 
arrive at truthful conclusions ; but if erroneous, 
the certainty will be inconformable to truth. 

God, in His wise decrees, has ordained that man 
be brought to the use of reason through the 
medium of human faith ; but whenever this is viti- 
ated, the use made of it, or the reason itself, is 
vitiated also. A Catholic child having arrived at 
the use of reason is impressed by the certainty of 
natural reason, or acquires a rational certitude, 
that the Catholic Church is the one, true Church. 
This is not so much a consequence of the faith 
divinely infused into his soul as it is of the frequent 
lessons imparted to him on the divine origin of the 
Church by his parents, pastor and teacher, whose 
exposition of the oneness and divinity of the 
Church he accepts as truthful, and therefore his 
certitude is truthful because derived from a truth- 
ful source. The reverse is true of a Protestant 
child relative to the Catholic Church, from the 
fact that his certainty in the non-divinity of the 
Church is from a false source, and is therefore 
false itself. Thus it will be seen that the certainty 
of human faith is not always free from error. 
That human faith be a means of acquiring truthful 
knowledge it must have two conditions ; namely, 



ii4 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

that the person who narrates the existence of a 
thing or fact is positively certain he is not mis- 
taken, and that he speak truly according to his 
knowledge of the subject of which he speaks. If 
either of these be wanting, human faith cannot be 
accepted as certain. Although it may be accom- 
panied by these, yet it cannot be accepted as 
absolutely true, because those who testify to the 
existence of facts which they consider purely cir- 
cumstantial are liable to be mistaken, and hence 
absolute certaintv is not inherent in human faith. 

With divine faith the case is entirely different ; 
for as God is infinitely truthful, it follows that 
whatever He has revealed is truthful, and there- 
fore divine faith has absolute certainty inherent in 
it. 

The first essential, then, in one who desires to 
become a member of Christ's mystical body is 
divine faith ; without this no foundation can be 
laid on which to erect a spiritual superstructure. 
Without implicit faith in Jesus Christ there is no 
access to Him ; for " without faith it is impossible 
to please God ; for he that cometh to God must 
believe that He is, and is a rewarder to them that 
seek Him." * Again, " Neither is there salvation 
in any other; for there is no other name under 
heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved." f 

* Heb. xi. 6. t Acts iv - I2 - 



Marks of the True Church. 1 1 5 

" He that believeth not maketh God a liar, because 
he believeth not the testimony which God hath 
given of His Son."* Christ says, " Eternal life 
consists in knowing the only true God and Jesus 
Christ whom He hath sent."f The Redeemer 
says in another place, " For he that shall be 
ashamed of Me and my words, in this adulterous 
and sinful generation, the Son of man also will be 
ashamed of him, when He shall come in the glory 
of His Father with the holy angels." % Again, our 
blessed Lord says, " He that believes and is bap- 
tized shall be saved, and he that does not believe 
shall be condemned ;"§ and, " Whosoever, there- 
fore, shall confess Me before men, I will also con- 
fess him before My Father who is in heaven." | 
Yet again He says, "And whosoever shall not 
receive you, nor hear your words, going forth 
out of that house or city, shake off the dust from 
your feet ; amen, I say to you, it shall be more 
tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha 
in the day of judgment than for that city." ^[ 

From these it will be seen how necessary true 
faith in Christ and His doctrines is in order to 
obtain membership in His Church, in which alone 
there is salvation. St. Paul defines this true faith 



* 1 John v. 10. f John xvii. 3. % Mark viii. 38. 

§ Mark xvi. 16. || Matt. x. 33. If Id. 14, 15. 



1 1 6 A Catholic Priest ci7td Scientists. 

to be " the substance of things hoped for, the 
evidence of things that appear not." * Here we 
see that the object of faith is immaterial, invisible, 
and therefore remote from the action of our senses. 
The object of divine faith is the possession of our 
ultimate end, the fruition of the Beatific Vision, 
the eternal happiness promised by the Redeemer 
to those who love and serve Him in this life. The 
fulfillment of this promise and the existence of this 
incomparable happiness we accept on the testi- 
mony of Eternal Truth, and in this implicit accept- 
ance consists the value of faith. In confirmation 
of this our Lord said to Thomas, " Because thou 
hast seen, Thomas, thou hast believed ; blessed are 
they that have not seen and have believed." f 

Now, as Christ, who is infinitely good and holy, 
exacts a knowledge and an observance of His law 
under pain of eternal loss, — for without faith it is 
impossible to please God, — He must have left on earth 
a depository and an exponent of His law. Did He 
leave any such ? Yes ; the prophet Isaias speaking 
of God's kingdom says, u And a path and a way 
shall be there ; and it shall be called The holy way ; 
the unclean" — that is, those who have no faith — 
" shall not pass over it ; and this shall be unto you 
a straight way, so that fools shall not err therein." X 

* Heb. xi. i. f John xx. 29. \ Is. xxxv. 8. 



Marks of the Trite Church, 1 1 7 

This path and way, straight and of easy access, in 
finding which the illiterate can have no difficulty, 
and in which they cannot err — that is, in which 
and through which they cannot be led to embrace 
or profess erroneous doctrine — is the Catholic 
Church, which Jesus founded and made the deposi- 
tory and exponent of divine faith. From and 
through this Church the true and faithful sense of 
the Holy Scriptures can be known. This Church, 
after having stamped the seal of her divine autho- 
rity on the written and unwritten Word of God, 
is the rule by which the Roman Catholic is 
guided through that narrow road that leads from 
time to eternity. But this Protestants will not 
admit. They say, "The written Word ^/^inter- 
preted by every sincere man of sound judgment, is 
the rule left to man by the Redeemer, through' 
which he can know what he has to believe and 
practise in order to enter into eternal glory/' 

Does not this convert the Word of God into the 
word of man ? According to this rule, the intro- 
duction of error is unavoidable into the Scriptures. 
On the insufficiency of this rule St. Jerome, who 
flourished many centuries before its inception or 
adoption, says: "Let us be persuaded that the 
Scriptures consist in sense but not in words. An 
erroneous explanation turns the Word of God 
into the word of man, nay, into the word of the 



1 1 8 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

devil ; for the devil quoted a text of Scripture 
when he tempted our Lord in the desert." * The 
insufficiency and consequent absurdity of this rule 
will be seen by the most ordinary thinker from 
the following controversy : 

A most sincere and well-meaning minister of the 
Anglican Church, " by law established," says to 
a sincere, honest preacher of the Presbyterian 
Church : " Brother Jones, from the teaching of 
the Scriptures it is clear to my mind that there 
must be bishops in the Church of God ; otherwise 
priests cannot be ordained, sacraments cannot be 
administered, and churches cannot be consecrated 
or governed. You must grant, on the testimony 
of God's written Word, that when Jesus was on 
earth He constituted Himself Bishop and Head of 
our one, holy, Catholic Church, and that after His 
ascension the Apostles became bishops and heads 
of our Church. This being true on the testimony 
of the Scriptures, cease to subscribe to the teach- 
ings of a religion that is neither of Jesus, of the 
Apostles, nor of the Bible, and become a member 
of our one, holy Catholic Church, in which there 
is life, light, and salvation, or your soul will be lost 
to Jesus." 

" Brother Giles, in my humble opinion," replied 

* Jerome, in Comm. in Ep. ad Gal. contra Luciferianes. 



Marks of the True Church. 119 

Brother Jones, "you seem to me to be wholly 
ignorant of the Scriptures and of history ; other- 
wise you would not speak as you do. Sir, under- 
stand that your Church is neither one, holy, nor 
Catholic. Neither were Christ nor the Apostles 
its bishops or heads, but King Henry VIII. and 
Queen Elizabeth were. Your Church is as much 
to-day the incarnation of the spirit of rebellion, 
avarice, luxury, oppression, and plunder as it was 
on the day that its father and founder said in his 
madness, / am the master of the Church of God. 
Indeed ! your Church is one, holy, universal, and 
apostolical ! The holiness of your Church consists 
in spoliation, its universality in making undis- 
guised atheists and pantheists out of its members, 
who sneer at us, true Christians, and its apostoli- 
city in the headship of English kings and queens. 
Queen Victoria is the head of your Church now, 
and, from a financial point of view, she is not the 
best you have had, for she disendowed your 
Church in unfortunate Ireland, whose life-blood 
Anglicanism drank for the last three centuries. 
Your form of worship is composed of fragment- 
ary prayers, hymns, and chants you stole from 
the Romish Church to ape Popery. Do not get 
angry, I pray you. Truth is bitter. A minister 
of the meek Jesus_ should not show anger while 
historic truths are being told to him. I have said 



1 20 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

nothing against your Church but what I can 
prove from truthful history. Understand now 
that the Church of God is composed of a cer- 
tain chosen number in Christ of Adam's fallen 
race whom God predestined from the founda- 
tion of the world unto eternal glory, without the 
least foresight of faith, good works, or any other con- 
dition to be performed by them. You will further 
understand that God passed by the rest of man- 
kind because of their sins, in order that His vindic- 
tive justice might be praised by the angels and 
saints. For proof of this statement, see Proverbs 
xvi. 4; Romans 9th chapter from verse nth to 
end of chapter. See, also, Ephesians i. 4 and Acts 
xiii. 48. 

" The Church of God, sir, must not be governed 
by bishops, but by presbyters who are chosen by 
the people, and ordained to office by their prede- 
cessors in office, by virtue of the commission Jesus 
gave to the Apostles. Of the truth of this funda- 
mental principle I am certain from the testimony 
of the Scriptures, which fill my soul with divine 
light, through which I see the emptiness and non- 
Christian foundation of your so-called Catholic 
Church. Then, Brother Giles, if you desire to be 
one of the predestined, give up your belief in the 
divine origin of a Church that is purely human 
from the testimony of history and the Scriptures, 



Marks of the True Church, 1 2 1 

and join our Presbyterian Church that is of God 
and His written Word." 

Here a Baptist minister, who considered himself 
a first-class Biblical scholar, attempted, but in vain, 
to correct the misstatements of Brothers Giles and 
Jones, by saying : " My friends, I am truly sorry, 
for your soul's sake, to hear you assert that your 
respective religions have been established b) T 
Jesus, and therefore true. Your attempt to con- 
vert each other to your peculiar belief is truly 
pitiable, for it is nothing more than an attempt of 
the blind to lead the blind. The religions you pro- 
fess and teach are not the religions of the Bible, 
because devoid of that essential which would in- 
corporate them with Jesus. At best your religions 
are but human institutions, and therefore, have no 
saving principle inherent .in them. You ask me 
what essential principle this is I speak of which 
your religions have not. Ah, brothers ! if you 
properly and profitably read the Scriptures, you 
would have this essential, baptism, in your souls, 
by which you could clearly see the falsity of the 
religions you profess and teach. Brothers, it is 
true that when you were infants you were bap- 
tized; but allow me to ask you if this rite were 
not null and void from the fact that you could not 
repent of your sins and make an accompanying act 
of faith in the saving merits of Jesus ? If you are 



122 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

honest, you must answer in the affirmative, for 
Jesus said to His Apostles, * Go ye unto all the 
world, and preach the gospel to every creature; 
he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.' 
From this you see, brothers, that for baptism to 
be valid faith and repentance must pre-exist the 
holy rite ; otherwise the recipient is not incorpo- 
rated with Jesus. Then, in God's name, submit 
to re-baptism, become members of the Baptist 
Church, which is the only true Church of God ; 
otherwise, to a certainty, you will be eternally 
lost." 

Brother Lardner, of the Unitarian Church, says : 
u Brothers, I have listened to your controversy 
with much patience, and have concluded that you 
are guilty of idolatry, and therefore the Lord will 
condemn you when you appear before Him, un- 
less you are converted from your evil ways." 
The preachers exclaim, " How ? Why ? Explain, 
explain !" " Yes, brothers, I will explain. Is it 
not true that you pay to the man Jesus the worship 
that belongs to God ? and is it not true that you 
pay the Holy Ghost the worship which belongs 
to God ? Now, does not Christ call Himself the 
Son of man, and you make Him equal to God? 
Brothers, after having carefully read the eighth 
chapter of John, 18, 19, Romans viii. 34, and 1 
Timothy ii. 5, you will, I hope, abandon your pagan 



Marks of the True Church. 123 

belief and become members of the Unitarian 
Church ; otherwise your future state will be hell." 

Brother Wesley, a pious Methodist parson, 
whose stock of knowledge consisted in an oscilla- 
tion between politics and hatred of Catholicity, 
demands a hearing, which is willingly accorded 
to him. He says : " I clearly see that none of you 
have the Spirit of God which illumines the Bible. 
If you properly understood the written Word of 
God you would have this Divine Spirit to guide 
you ; but since you have not, you are enveloped 
in the darkness of error, which shuts out from 
your intellects the glare and glory of true religion. 
The Scriptures tell me that Jesus must be in the 
heart, light it up, inflame it with His love, so that 
you can feel it sensibly within you, no matter what 
you may do wrong. In order, then, to be pos- 
sessed of this Divine Spirit, abandon your impious 
belief, attend our camp -meetings, and become 
members of the Methodist Church, or you will 
be lost to Jesus." 

" Gentlemen," exclaims a Universalist preacher, 
"one would suppose that you were children who 
never read a page of the Bible, from the nature of 
your religious expressions. Because you differ in 
belief you, without any warrant from Scripture, 
consign each other to hell for all eternity. Now 
if each of you read the Bible with the same care 



124 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

that I did, you would conclude with me that sin 
carries with it its own punishment in this life, and 
therefore that there is no such state in the next life 
as hell. You must grant that God, who is a fur- 
nace of divine love, never made hell for man, no 
matter what may be the nature of his sins. As 
we are all in God, it does not matter whether we 
are Episcopalians, Presbyterians, or Methodists ; 
when we return to dust our souls will be gathered to 
the Lord. Do not, then, embitter your days, which 
are but few, by religious strife, but join the Uni- 
versalist Church, which is of God and the Bible." 
" Brethren," shouted an excited Quaker, " I feel 
disgusted at your views of true religion. The 
wealth and luxury you wallow in, have obscured 
your minds and left you without faith in the one 
true God and Jesus, His Son. If you honestly 
read the Bible you would know and believe that 
there are two kingdoms, the one of this world, 
the other of Jesus. You would also know that 
these kingdoms are governed by Adam, the old 
man, and Jesus, the new man, two different per- 
sonages, possessing different spirits and executing 
different works. Now, to be saved we must put 
off the old man Adam and his works — that is, we 
must be in the world but not of it, we must buy 
as though we possessed not (i Cor. vii. 30); and 
put on the new man Jesus and His works — that is, 



Marks of the True Church. 125 

we must lead pure lives, unstained by those in 
dulgences which constitute the world (John ii. 
15, 16). Your kingdom, then, must not be of the 
world (John xviii. 26), but of Christ, whom you 
must worship in community, not in words alone, 
but in shaking and contorting your bodies, which 
will involve no difficulty from the workings of the 
Spirit within you. Now, brethren, if you desire 
salvation, divorce yourselves from those false re- 
ligions of the old man Adam and join the Shaker 
religion of the new man Jesus, which is the only 
true religion of the Bible." 

While the assembled preachers were looking 
vacantly at each other, a scientist of the Dr. 
Priestly school demanded a hearing, which was 
granted on condition that he would review the 
remarks of the last speaker ; but this the " philoso- 
pher' refused to do, who said : " Gentlemen, I do 
not at all see that any good will result from a 
quarrel about religion, which, to my mind, is a 
nonentity for the reason that man is only a mate- 
rial being. What you designate as soul, or the 
principle of perception, is not a substance distinct 
from the body, but an evolved condition or form 
of nature's power, like light, heat, or magnetism. 
From this I conclude that since man is purely an 
animal, having inherent, in him the energy of pro- 
gression, it is folly in you to quarrel about creeds 



126 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

which were called into existence by men like 
yourselves/' 

Here the preachers in an angry tone called on 
the scientist to sustain his theory by Scriptural 
proof, who replied : " Yes, gentlemen, I will prove 
my statements from the Bible, and while I do so I 
claim your undivided attention, that henceforth 
your presence may swell the ranks of materialistic 
assemblies. Paul says, ' But if there be no resurrec- 
tion of the dead, then Christ is not risen again. And 
if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching 
vain, and your faith is vain also. . . . If I fought 
with the beasts at Ephesus, what doth it profit me, if 
the dead rise not again ? Let us eat, drink, for to- 
morrow we shall die.' " * 

Now, since no two of these men agreed in re- 
ligious belief, although their rule of faith was 
taken from the Bible, the law of logic demands 
that their rule be rejected because of its insuffi- 
ciency. If these men arrived at conclusions at 
variance with each other, how much more so 
would be the conclusions of the Lutherans, Zwing- 
lians, Mennonites, Muggletonians, and hundreds 
of others if called upon to account for their 
faith. But the absurdity of this rule does not rest 
here. I suppose it will be conceded that the col- 
lective body of Protestants are not educated. If 

* I Cor. xv. 13, 14-32. 



Marks of the Trite Church. 1 2 7 

this be so, by what rule are the uneducated to be 
guided ? Not by the written Word of God, be- 
cause they cannot read it. Can their preachers 
be a rule to them? No; because each preacher 
must form his own rule from an honest, careful 
reading of the Bible, and therefore he cannot be 
a rule to any one of his congregation. But let 
us grant that the collective body of Protes- 
tants can read the Bible ; yet they have no rule 
of faith, because no one outside the Catholic 
Church can prove that the Bible is inspired. A 
Protestant cannot prove it from the Bible itself, 
because it does not testify to its own inspiration. 
He cannot prove, even, that the translations he 
has access to are correct, owing to his ignorance 
of the language in which the original was written. 
An honest Protestant cannot interpret the Scrip- 
tures, even if he had access to the original, because 
of his absence of faith and the difficulty attending 
their comprehension. As I said before, the Holy 
Scriptures are very profound, and hence presup- 
pose a truly philosophic mind to understand them. 
The priests of the Catholic Church, who are a well- 
educated body, and who devote their whole lives 
to the study of the Scriptures, although aided in 
the same by the commentaries of such great liter- 
ary lights as Estius, Calmet, Cajetan, Cornelius a 
Lapide, and Menochius, interpret the Scriptures 



128 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

with great care, and declare that in many places 
they are very difficult of comprehension. St. Je- 
rome, in his letter to the priest Paulinus, says : 
" The beginning and conclusion of the prophecy 
of Ezechiel, and the beginning of Genesis, were so 
obscure that the Jews forbade their being read by 
any person under thirty years of age." St. Peter 
says, " The epistles of St. Paul are hard to be 
understood, and that the unlearned and unstable 
wrest them, as also the other Scriptures, to 
their perdition." * From this it follows that since 
the Bible, interpreted by private judgment, has 
not the requirements an infallible rule of faith 
should have, the inherent attributes of truth de- 
mand its rejection because it is not the rule left 
by eternal Truth to man. Where, then, will this 
infallible rule be found ? Only in that Church 
which was established for the instruction of man- 
kind, and which is known by the marks and proper- 
ties Of UNITY, VISIBILITY, INDEFECTIBILITY, APOS- 
TOLICITY, UNIVERSALITY, and SANCTITY. Did 

Jesus Christ establish this Church ? Yes. The 
Son of God came on earth not only to redeem man, 
but also to found His Church, which was to be the 
exponent of His will to man in all ages, and the 
depository of the truths Ke was about to reveal. 
While John the Baptist, who from a sense of 

* 2 Peter iii 16. 



Marks of the True Church. 129 

humility, called himself " the voice of one crying in 
the desert," was exhorting the Jews to do penance, 
"for the kingdom of God was at hand/' * Jesus 
came to him to be baptized. After the God-man 
was baptized, He went into the desert of Judea 
" and fasted forty days and forty nights," f and 
then returned to the sea of Galilee, where he 
found Simon, who was afterwards called Peter, 
and Andrew his brother, casting their nets into the 
sea. He said to them, " Come after me, and I will 
make you become fishers of men. And they, 
immediately leaving their nets, followed him." % 
Jesus continued to increase the number of His 
Apostles until He had twelve, and then, to test 
their faith in his divinity, asked them, " Whom 
do men say the Son of man is ? And they said : 
Some say that Thou art John the Baptist, and 
others Elias, and others Jeremias or one of the 
prophets. Jesus said to them, But w r hom do you 
say that I am? Simon Peter answering said, 
Thou art Christ the Son of the living God. And 
Jesus answering said to him, Blessed art thou, 
Simon Bar-jona ; because flesh and blood hath not 
revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in 
heaven. And I say to thee, that Thou art Peter, 
and upon this rock I will build my church ; and 
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And 

* Matt. iii. 2. \ Id. iv. 2. % Id. xviii. 20. 



1 30 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

I will give to thee the keys [emblems of power] of 
the kingdom of heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt 
bind on earth, it shall be bound in heaven ; and 
whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall 
be loosed in heaven. " * Simon had no sooner 
confessed the divinity of Christ than the foun- 
dation of the Church militant was laid. After 
Simon's confession Jesus changed his name to 
Peter, which signifies a rock, and affirmed that 
upon him, as upon a rock, He would build His 
Church, against which the persecution of the 
world and the powers of hell would never prevail. 
In giving Peter, the Rock, the keys of the king- 
dom of heaven, Jesus Christ conferred on him 
supreme authority in His Church, agreeable to 
the prophecy of Isaias, who said, u I will lay the 
key of the house of David upon his shoulders, and 
he shall open and none shall shut; and he shall 
shut and none shall open." f Thenceforth Jesus 
continued to build, enlarge, adjust, and give ex- 
pansion to His Church, and to instruct His Apos- 
tles in the mysteries of revealed religion until 
His glorious ascension into heaven. 

But up to this the Apostles received no divine 
commission bearing the seal of the Spirit of Truth 
to preach the Gospel and extend the spiritual king- 
dom of Jesus Christ No. The God-man was first 

* Matt. xvi. 13-19. t ^ s - xx "- 22 - 



Marks of the True Church, 131 

to be crucified, that man be restored to the friend- 
ship of his Creator, and that the Holy Ghost be 
sent down on the Apostles to enable them to preach 
the joyful tidings of redemption. The appalling 
moment at length arrived on which the Son of 
God was to be ignominiously put to death by His 
own ; a moment the vastness of which, because of 
the immensity of Him who was to suffer, and the 
nothingness of him for whom He was to suffer, the 
human mind cannot comprehend. That an Omni- 
potent God, who created the universe out of noth- 
ing, should, through love for man, a worm of the 
earth, become a helpless infant in the crib in Beth- 
lehem, a voluntary exile and victim for his redemp- 
tion, is a mystery profound and incomprehensible. 
Its grandeur, depth, and sublimity can be admired, 
but never fathomed by finite reason. 

Alas ! Nature's smiles are changed to tears : yes, 
inanimate nature sighs, groans, and weeps, and the 
grand complex universe seems to be returning to 
the dark abyss of chaos. The earth, so long obe- 
dient to the law of attraction of gravitation, now 
refuses to be obedient to any law, for it heaves 
and rocks upon its foundation as if in the throes 
of dissolution. The sea, so long obedient to the 
fiat that gave it being and confined it within its 
rock-bound coast, now essays to overleap its bar- 
rier and deal death to man about to dye his hands 



132 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

in the blood of God. The sun, evoked from the 
darkness of chaos, that so long shed his golden 
rays upon the earth, now refuses to give light. 
As if endued with reason, he envelops his lovely 
form in a mantle of chaotic darkness, that he might 
not let fall his benign rays on the horrid crime that 
was about to be perpetrated. The howling winds, 
the pitiful moans of animals, the shrieks of sea 
fowl, vacantly flying over the ocean's angry, crested 
billows, the rending of rocks, the re-appearance of 
souls that departed this life, the dense darkness 
that heavily hung over the earth, attest the atrocity 
of the deed that is about to be committed. Why 
is the earth convulsed ? Why is the ocean lashed 
into fury ? Why are the rocks rent ? Why does 
the lovely orb of day refuse to give light? and 
why does nature sigh, moan, and weep ? Mount 
Calvary answers these questions. Nature weeps 
and is in mourning for her God, who is suspended 
between heaven and earth, crowned with thorns, 
pierced with nails, abandoned by friends except 
the " Mater Dolorosa/' who weeps and sighs while 
her divine Son suffers and dies! The following 
lines are not inappropriate : 

" His brow its thorny crown receives. 
His cheeks that once so roseate glowed 
Are drenched with blood, are marred with blows, 
That we, thereby, may live." 



Marks of the True Church, 133 

The Son of God being arisen from the grave, 
victorious over death, did not absent Himself 
from His Mother, the Apostles, or His infant 
Church. He knew that the Apostles were timid, 
illiterate men, and therefore, that they needed the 
reception of the Holy Spirit to impart to them 
those sublime gifts which characterized their min- 
istry ; hence He appeared to them, spoke to them 
words of affection, of advice, and conferred on 
them the plenitude of spiritual power to give uni- 
versality to the Church and to instruct all nations 
in the truths He revealed. " And Jesus coming in 
spoke to them, saying, All power is given to me in 
heaven and earth ; go ye, therefore, and teach all 
nations ; baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching 
them to observe all things whatsoever I have 
commanded you; and, behold, I am with you all 
days, even to the consummation of the world. "* 
And again : Go ye into the whole world and preach 
the gospel to every living creature. f . . . He that 
heareth you, heareth me ; and he that despiseth 
you, despiseth me ; and he that despiseth me, de- 
spiseth Him that sent me." % " But when He, the 
Spirit of truth, is come, He will teach you all truth ; % 

* Matt, xxviii. 18-20 \ Mark xvi. 15. % Luke x. 16. 

§ OSrfvrjSai vjuaS eiS ita^av dXrfQeiav. " He will guide you 
unto all truth." 



134 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

for he shall not speak of himself ; but what things 
soever he shall hear, he shall speak ; and the things 
that are to come he shall shew you/' * " And I 
shall ask the Father, and he shall give you another 
Paraclete, that he may abide with you for EVER, 
the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot re- 
ceive, because it seeth him not, nor knoweth him ; 
but you shall know him, because he shall abide with 
you, and shall be in you." \ 

From these it will be seen that the Redeemer 
did not leave His Apostles orphans, but that He 
appeared to them, and delegated them, after hav- 
ing conferred on them power coequal with that 
which He received from His Father, to preach the 
Gospel to every living creature, with a promise 
that He would be with them to the end of time ; 
that is, that after they received eternal reward 
He would be with their successors. He assured 
them that He would ask the Father to send them 
the Spirit of Truth, who would not only be with 
them as an infallible guide, but would abide in 
them by grace. Moreover, He told them that he 
who heard them heard Himself, and that they who 
despised them despised not only Him, but the 
Father who sent Him. Let "liberal" Catholics, 
who constantly traduce the priest, meditate seri- 

* John xvi. 13. f John xiv. 16-18. 



Marks of the Trite Church. 135 

ously on this ; let them bear in mind that when 
they deliberately and maliciously slander the 
anointed of God, they slander Jesus Christ and 
His Father who sent Him ! + 

From the Scriptural proofs advanced, it is in- 
disputably evident that the Church of God was 
built upon a firm foundation ; that Peter, the Rock, 
was appointed her visible head ; that Jesus Christ is 
her invisible head ; that the Holy Ghost was prom- 
ised to her as her soul, her guide in truth ; that the 
Apostles were commanded to exercise their spir- 
itual power throughout the whole world, and that 
Jesus would be with them and their successors till 
the end of time. All that now was wanting to the 
infant Church and the Apostles was the fulfillment 
of the promise made to them. As God is eternal 
Truth, this promise He fulfilled. " And when the 
days of Pentecost were accomplished they were 
all together in the same place. And suddenly 
there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind 
coming ; and it filled the whole house where they 
were sitting; and there appeared to them cloven 
tongues as it were of fire ; and it sat upon each of 
them ; and they were all filled with the Holy 
Ghost ; and they began to speak in divers tongues, 
according as the Holy Ghost gave them to 
speak." * 

* Acts ii. 1-4. 



136 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

The Apostles, after being filled by the Holy 
Spirit, were new men. They were no longer of 
the world, for the Divine Spirit had no sooner 
taken possession of their hearts than He consumed 
whatever of the world was in them. From the 
moment this imcomparable Light, the beauty and 
glory of the empyrean heavens, descended upon 
them, burst upon their intellects, they clearly 
understood the mysteries of revealed religion, in- 
tuitively saw that the law of servitude had given 
place to that of freedom and love, and that the 
Synagogue was forever closed. The love of God 
and their neighbor so inflamed their hearts that 
they burned with the desire to communicate the 
glad tidings of redemption to humanity enveloped 
in the shadows of death. They, therefore, preached 
Jesus Christ crucified to Jew and Gentile, and con- 
firmed their preaching by the working of miracles 
through the power of the Holy Spirit. Those 
they converted from paganism and Judaism they 
formed into congregations, consecrated bishops to 
direct them, and ordained priests to break to them 
the Bread of Life. Here it is noteworthy, because 
historically true, that the Apostles did not attempt 
to convert Jew or Gentile to Christianity by scrip 
tural argument alone ; they did not present those 
they essayed to convert with a copy of the New 
Testament, stating'that it was an infallible rule of 



Marks of the True Church. 



U7 



faith, and therefore, could not lead them into error. 
They could make no such statement because the 
New Testament was not then written. Our 
blessed Lord did not write His law as Moses did ; 
it was written on the heart by charity and pro- 
duced fruit a thousandfold. To prevent false doc- 
trines from corrupting the deposit of tradition, the 
Apostles and Evangelists fixed with certainty, in 
writing, the doctrine of the Redeemer, and hence 
the New Testament, inspired by the Holy Spirit, 
came forth. 

The Council of Hippo, in Africa, held in the 
year 393, decreed " that nothing be read in the 
Church under the name of the Scriptures except 
the Canonical Scriptures," which are : 



Genesis. 


Tobias. 


Osee. 


Exodus. 


Judith. 


Joel. 


Leviticus. 


Esther. 


Amos. 


Numbers. 


Job. 


Abdias. 


Deuteronomy. 


Psalms. 


Jonas. 


Josue. 


Proverbs. 


Micheas. 


Judges. 


Ecclesiastes. 


Nahum. 


Ruth. 


Canticle of Canticles 


. Habacuc. 


I. Kings. 


Wisdom. 


Sophonias. 


II. Kings. 


Ecclesiasticus. 


Aggeus. 


III. Kings. 


Isaias. 


Zacharias. 


IV. Kings. 


Jeremias. 


Malachias. 


I. Paralipomenon. 


Lamentations. 


I. Machabees. 


II. Paralipomenon. 


Baruch. 


II. Machabees. 


I. Esdras. 


Ezechiel. 




II. Esdras. 


Daniel. 





138 A Catholic Priest and Scientists, 

St. Matthew. Ephesians. Hebrews. 

St. Mark. Philippians. Epistle of St. James. 

St. Luke. Colossians. I. St. Peter. 

St. John. I. Thessalonians. II. St. Peter. 

Acts of the Apostles. II. Thessalonians. I. St. John. 

St. Paul to the Romans. I. Timothy. II. St. John. 

I. Corinthians. II. Timothy. III. St. John. 

II. Corinthians. Titus. St. Jude. 
Galatians. Philemon. Apocalypse. 

This list of canonical books was also approved 
by the Council of Carthage held in the year 419, 
and by the Council of Trent in the year 1 545-1 563. 
From an examination of this list of canonical 
books, which corresponds with the Books of the 
Douay Bible of to-day, the conclusion must be 
accepted, because true, that the religion established 
by our blessed Lord was being preached through- 
out the world for 360 years before the Church 
affixed her seal of approval on the holy Scrip- 
tures. The conclusions must also be accepted 
that the Church of to-day was the Church of the 
third century, as the Bible of to-day was the 
Bible of the year 393, and therefore, that Protes- 
tantism and its so-called Bible are not of God 
and the Apostles, but of man. This therefore, I 
will prove legitimately deduced, and consequent- 
ly true, from Scripture, the Fathers, history, and 
reason. 

St. Clement, who flourished in the days of St. 



Marks of the Trite Church. 139 

Peter, wrote to the schismatics who attempted to 
sever the unity of the Church founded by our 
Lord and extended over the then known world by 
the Apostles, whose works were confirmed by 
wonderful miracles, in the following language : 
" It is shameful and unworthy your Christian pro- 
fession that the most firm and ancient Church of 
the Corinthians, on account of one or two persons, 
should be in sedition against the priests. . . . Let 
the flock of Jesus Christ be at peace with the con- 
stituted priests." * St. Ignatius, a Father of the 
Greek Church, who flourished in the second cen- 
tury, says : " It becomes you to concur in the mind 
of your bishop, for your famous presbytery, 
worthy of God, is knit so closely to the bishop as 
the strings to a harp. . . . Let no man deceive 
you ; if a man be not within the altar (the Church) 
he faileth of the bread of God. ... It is plain, 
then, that we ought to look to the bishop as to 
God Himself. ... I exhort you that you study to 
do all in the same unanimity of God ; f the bishop 
holding presidency in the place of God, the pres- 
byters in the council of the Apostles, and the 
deacons, most dear to me, entrusted with the 
service of Jesus Christ ; for inasmuch as you 



* Clem. Ep. 1 ad Corin. 

f UpoxaQy/Liev ov rov eiti^Hoitov eiS Oeov. 



1 40 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

are subject to the bishop, as to Jesus Christ,** you 
seem not to be living according to man, but to 
Jesus Christ who died for our sakes, that, believing 
in his death, you may escape death."f In another 
epistle the same Father says, " Avoid divisions as 
the beginning of evils. Follow the bishops all of 
you, even as Jesus Christ the Father, and the body 
of presbyters the Apostles. Respect the deacons 
as a commandment of God. Whosoever honoreth 
the bishop is honored of God. ,, $ 

Tertullian, a native of Carthage and contem- 
porary with St. Irenseus, says, " What the Apostles 
preached, that is, what Christ revealed to them, 
must be proved in no other way than by those 
same churches which they themselves founded ; § 
themselves preaching in them by viva voce, as by 
epistles. It is, therefore, manifest that all doctrine 
which agrees with those apostolic churches, the 
originals of faith, must be accounted true, as without 
doubt containing that which the churches have re- 
ceived from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ, 
and Christ from God. Every doctrine must be 
judged at once to be false which savoreth things 
contrary to the truth of the churches, and of the 

\ Ep. ad Trallian. % E P- a Smyr. 

§ " Non aliter probari debere, nisi per easdem ecclesias quas 
ipsi Apostoli condiderunt." 



Marks of the True Church. 141 

Apostles, and of Christ, and of God." * St. Am- 
brose, commenting on the twenty-fourth chapter 
of St. Matthew, says, " Go not ye out, believe not 
that the Son of man is either in the desert of the 
Gentiles or in the secret chambers of the heretics; 
but that from the East even to the West, His faith 
shines in Catholic churches." f St. Augustin says, 
" There is a contradiction of many tongues; dif- 
ferent heresies, divers schisms cry aloud ; many 
tongues contradict the true doctrine. Do thou 
run to the tabernacle of God, hold fast the Catholic 
Church, and thou wilt be protected from the con- 
tradiction of tongues." % 

The first distinctive mark by which the Church 
of God can be distinguished from every other sect 
which claims a divine origin is Unity. This mark 
renders her as visible to honest investigation as the 
noonday sun in the heavens. No form of religion, 
no sect or denomination is adorned with unity but 
" the House of God, the Kingdom of Christ, the 
Pillar and Ground of Truth," § the Catholic 
Church. Without this mark she would not be 



* Constat omnem doctrinam quae cum illis ecclesiis Apostolicis, 
et originalibus fidei conspiret, veritatem deputandum. . . . Omnem 
vero doctrinam mendacio praejudicandum, quae sapiat contra veri- 
tatem ecclesiarum." (Comm. in Matt. p. 196.) 

f Ambrosii Opp. t. iv. in Ps. xxx. p. 238. 

% Sermo Ixii. De Symbolo, p. 97. § 1 Tim. iii. 15. 



142 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

the Church of the " First-born," * but a human 
organization entirely destitute of divine light and 
life. 

That the members of the mystic body of Christ 
are a unit in faith, and are spiritually directed by 
one visible head, is a fact which the history of the 
world for eighteen hundred years attests. From 
one extreme of our globe to the other, from the 
rising to the going down of the sun, this will be 
found to be so. Although Catholics differ in lan- 
guage and customs, yet they agree in faith and 
submit to the pastoral direction of Peter, the 
Rock, to whom Christ gave the keys of the king- 
dom of heaven, with a command to feed His lambs 
and sheep. Is this truly so? Yes. It has been so 
from the days of the Apostles to the present, and 
will be so till the end of time, for the promises of 
Jesus Christ cannot fail. As Jesus is in the Father 
and the Father in Him, so is He in the Church 
and the Church in Him ; but as human members 
compose His mystic body, it follows that they are 
in Him and that He is in them by grace, flowing, 
as a consequence, from the unity and practice of 
divine faith. It matters not, therefore, what age 
of the Church we may examine, unity of faith in 
her members will flash upon our intellects with 

* Heb. xi. 22. 



Marks of the True Church. 143 

the same degree of certainty that the glare of the 
noonday sun does upon our visual organs ; and as 
the sun is one and the same in brilliancy and 
diffusion of light in our solar system, so too, is 
the Church, in the unity of faith and diffusion of 
divine light throughout the earth. On the prin- 
ciples of revealed religion her children do not hold 
different opinions. No ; rich and poor, learned and 
unlearned, master and servant, pastor and congre- 
gation, believe alike in the dogmas of the Catholic 
Church. 

The Armenians who reside on the banks of the 
Euphrates and Tigris, the converted Nestorians of 
Mesopotamia and Kurdistan, the Kopts on the 
coast of the Red Sea, who abjured Monophistism, 
the Melchites in Egypt and Western Asia, and the 
Maronites of Mount Lebanon, are in communion 
with the See of Rome, acknowledge the primacy 
of Peter, the Rock, offer up to God for the living 
and dead the same unbloody sacrifice, administer 
the same sacraments, observe the Lenten fast and 
precepts of the Catholic Church. 

The constitution of the Catholic Church for 
unity and equity has no equal on earth. Why? 
Because it was framed by Eternal Wisdom. From 
her sanctity, purity, discipline, and the wonderful 
subordination of her members to each other, she 
is to the powers of darkness as an army set in battle 



144 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

array. Many of her children, in every age of her 
history, from every walk of life, sought shelter in 
cloisters from the delusive charms of the world to 
acquire evangelical perfection and induce the in- 
dwelling of the Holy Ghost in their souls; but this 
is no more than it should be, for Christ has said, 
" And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold ; 
them also must I bring, and they shall hear My 
voice, and there shall be one fold and one shep- 
herd/' * " And not for them only do I pray, but 
for them also who through their word shall be- 
lieve in Me ; that they may all be one, as Thou, 
Father, in Me, and I in Thee ; that they also may 
be one in us ; that the world may believe that 
Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou 
hast given Me, I have given them ; that they may 
be one j as We are one"f St. Paul says, be " care- 
ful to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of 
peace ; one body and one spirit ; as you are called 
in one hope of your vocation. One Lord, ONE 
faith, one baptism ; one God and Father of all." % 
St. Paul, to further show the unity of the Catholic 
Church, says, " We being many are ONE body in 
Christ." § And Christ Himself, to show the ne- 
cessity of one faith, says, " Every kingdom divided 
against itself shall be made desolate ; and every 

* John x. 16. f J onn xvii - 20-22. t Eph. iv. 3-6. 

§ Romans xii. 5. 



Marks of the True Church. 145 

city or house divided against itself shall not 
stand." * 

Origen says : " We say that the divine words 
declare the whole Church of God to be of Christ's 
body, animated by the Son of God, and that all 
they who are believers are members of the same 
body, as of a w T hole ; since, as the soul gives life 
to and moves the body, which is not born so 
as to have vital motion of itself, so the Word 
moving to what is needful, and acting inward- 
ly on the whole body, in such wise, that they 
do no one thing without the Word." f St. Cy- 
prian says : " Another altar, or a new priesthood, 
besides the one altar and the one priesthood, can- 
not be set up." Alind alt are constitui, ant sacer- 
dotium novum fieri, preter unum altare, et unum 
sacerdotium, non potest. Continuing this subject, he 
says : " Whosoever gathereth elsewhere, scatter- 
eth. It is adulterous, impious, and sacrilegious to 
institute by human frenzy anything whatsoever 
that may violate a divine arrangement. Far from 
the contagion of such men depart, and, by flying, 
shun their discourse as a cancer and a plague ; 
according to God's warning word, they are blind 
leaders of the blind. But if the blind lead the blind 
both shall fall into the pit " (Matt. xv.)4 St. Am- 

* Matt. xii. 28. f T. i. contra Cels. cap. vi. n. 48, p. 670. 

% Ep. ad Pleb. de auinque presbyteris. 



1 46 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

brose says : " Learn from all this that heretics and 
schismatics are separated from the kingdom of 
God and from the Church ; and it is therefore 
manifest that all assemblies of schismatics and 
heretics are inimical to the Spouse of Christ.""* 
Now I ask my candid readers, Will this essen- 
tial mark, unity, be found to exist in any one of 
those two hundred and seventy Protestant sects? 
It will not, and it cannot ; for they came into 
the world fifteen hundred years too late to have 
unity of faith. Unity will not be found in the 
Anglican or " king-made Church," which is torn 
into fragments by religious discord. This Church 
since its establishment has produced four branches 
which bear dissimilar fruit. Can it be possible 
that a Church which claims to be universal has not 
unity of faith ? It has not. Its assumed univer- 
sality I shall soon place before my readers to pass 
judgment on. But these four branches, what of 
them ? Nothing more than that they differ in 
"Anglican" faith. The Ritualistic Church be- 
lieves in the real, actual presence of Christ in 
the Eucharist, and, agreeable to this belief, offers 
supreme adoration to bread, and therefore is guilty 
of idolatry. The High Church believes that God 
exists only symbolically under the sacramental 

* T. ii. lib. ii. de Psenitent. cap. iv. 



Marks of the True Church. 147 

veils, and that "no one receives Him by. way of 
a sign except those who have a lively faith in the 
sacrament." The Low Church ignores the belief 
of the two former in the Eucharist, and settles 
down in the doctrine of Calvinism. The Chicago- 
Cheney Episcopal Church cut itself loose from 
each of these disunited ramifications of Anglican- 
ism and formulated its own dogmas, which har- 
monize with the rationalistic spirit of the age. 
The clergy and laity of the " king-made Church" 
are Nestorians, for the reason that they only en- 
tertain views on the natures of Christ and the 
dogmas of revealed religion. As they have no 
infallible guide in truth, each entertains his own 
views on Christianity, each believes as he pleases, 
and finally becomes a latitudinarian, a rationalist, 
a pantheist, or an atheist. How can it be other- 
wise ? Do not the instincts of his mind tell him 
that his Church is a human institution, that his 
Bible is made up of private opinions, and that his 
Prayer-Book is nothing more than clauses from 
Acts of Parliament which command him to pro- 
fess faith in the divine right of his king or queen 
to govern the Church of God ? 

Macaulay, speaking of the absence of unity in 
the Anglican Church, says: "But unity she most 
certainly has not. It is a matter of perfect noto- 
riety that her formularies are framed in such a 



148 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

manner as to admit to her highest offices men who 
differ from each other more widely than a very- 
High Churchman differs from a Catholic, or a very 
Low Churchman from a Presbyterian ; and that 
the general bearing of the Church, with respect 
to some important questions, has sometimes been 
one way and sometimes another." * 

Hay, an Anglican divine who professed theo- 
logy in Cambridge, and who at heart was a Uni- 
tarian, says : " I could not worship one, true God 
and acknowledge Jesus Christ to be Lord of all." f 
Doctor Blackburn said : " Five out of every hun- 
dred ministers of the Anglican Church do not sub- 
scribe to or believe in the Thirty-nine Articles." % 

Will unity be found in the Presbyterian Church ? 
No. This sect is divided and subdivided into the 
New and Old School, the Associated, Reformed, 
and Associate Reformed churches, each of which 
preaches dissimilar doctrine. 

Will unity be found in the Baptist Church ? No. 
The term Babel conveys an idea of the unity that 
exists in this denomination. This sect to-day is 
divided into the Calvinistic, the Associated, the 
Independent, the Anabaptist, the Free-will, the 
Seventh-day, the Six-principle, the Keithian, the 

* Macaulay's Miscellany, p. 395. 

f Lectures on Divinity, by Hay, vol. ii. p. 104. 

% Confess. 3d ed. p. 91. 



Marks of the True Church. 1 49 

Pedo, and Antipedo Baptist churches, each differ- 
ing in religious belief, and each claiming to be 
of God. 

Will unity be found in the Methodist Church^ 
No, except that of hatred for the Catholic Church. 
This sect is divided into the Wesleyan, the Epis- 
copal, the Protestant, the New Connection, the 
United Free, the Welsh Calvinistic, and Mission- 
ary churches. As these ramifications of "holy" 
Methodism are of man and not of God, it follows 
from the inherent attributes of truth that in their 
collective and individual being they do not possess 
the first essential note of the Church of God — 
unity of divine faith. 

The second mark of the Church of God is 
Visibility. That the one, holy, Roman Catholic 
Church possesses this mark is proved from the 
prophecies of Isaias, Daniel, and Micheas ; from 
the promises of Christ, the commission given to 
the Apostles to teach all nations, and from her 
church government. 

" And in the last days the mountain of the house 
of God shall be prepared on the top of mountains, 
and it shall be exalted above the hills, and all na- 
tions shall flow into it." * 

Here the prophet distinctly points out the visi- 

* Isaias ii. 2. 



150 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

bility of the Church, where he says, In the last 
days — that is, from the advent of Christ to the end 
of time — the mountain of the house of God shall be 
prepared on the top of mountains. Certainly a 
mountain on the t<jp of mountains must be visible. 
This the prophet Daniel corroborates, and at the 
same time foreshows the universality and mdefect- 
ibility of the Church, where he says, " But in the 
days of those kingdoms the God of heaven will 
set up a kingdom" (the Catholic Church) "that 
shall never be destroyed, and His kingdom shall 
not be delivered to another people ; and it shall 
break in pieces, and shall consume all these king- 
doms; and itself shall stand for ever"* The 
prophet Micheas says : " And it shall come to 
pass in the last days that the mountain of the 
house of the Lord shall be prepared in the top of 
mountains, and high above the hills ; and people 
shall flow to it. And many nations shall come in 
haste and say, Come, let us go up to the moun- 
tain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of 
Jacob ; and He will teach us of His ways, and we 
will walk in His paths, for the law shall go forth 
out of Sion."f 

The prophet tells us that so soon as the house of 
the Lord would be prepared on the top of moun- 

f Daniel ii. 44. * Micheas iv. 1, 2. 



Marks of the True Church. 1 5 1 

tains, that is, so soon as the Church would be 
founded, she would assume visibility, through 
which all people would recognize her, and flow 
into her to be instructed in the revealed law. On 
this Christ Himself is very explicit where He tells 
His Apostles that they are the light of the world, a 
city seated on a mountain which cannot be hid. The 
visibility of the Church is plainly signified by the 
woman clothed with the sun, having the moon beneath 
her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 
The Church of God is rendered visible by being 
clothed by the Eternal Word who is in her, and 
who is more brilliant, more dazzling in effulgence 
than all the material suns poised in space. She is 
visible by reason of her constitution, which, for 
justice, equity, and charity, has no equal on earth. 
She is visible because many, very many, of her 
members, in all ages of her history, astonished the 
world by the sanctity of their lives, their love of 
suffering, of being crucified with their divine Mas- 
ter, who by His grace lulled their passions, made 
them obedient to reason, and filled their souls with 
celestial sweets which attest the fact that they pos- 
sessed Him who created the universe out of noth- 
ing, brought light out of darkness, walked on the 
waters, and lulled the tempest. 

St. Chrysostom says, " It is easier for the sun to 
become extinguished than for the Church to be- 



152 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

come invisible."* St. Hilary says, " The light or 
lamp [the Church] cannot be hidden under a bushel, 
nor be concealed by any covering of the Syna- 
gogue, but hung on the Word of the Passion ; it 
will give an everlasting light to those who dwell 
in it/ Lumen externum in ecclesia habitantibus prce- 
bitura est. St. Basil says, " The house of the Lord 
prepared on the top of mountains is the Church, 
according to the declarations of the Apostle, who 
said, Know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the 
house of God which is the Church of the living God 
(1 Tim. iii.), whose foundations are on the holy 
mountains ; for it is built on the foundations of the 
prophets and Apostles. One of these mountains 
was Peter, upon which Rock the Lord promised to 
build His Church." f 

Can any one sect of Protestantism prove its vis- 
ibility for eighteen hundred years? Not one. 
Lutheranism could not pre-exist its founder Lu- 
ther, who died in 1546, and Anglicanism could not 
pre-exist Henry VIII., who died in 1547. It fol- 
lows, therefore, that these sects came into this 
material world 1 546 years too late to claim visi- 
bility. 

Speaking of the Tzw-visibility of the Anglican 
Church, Macaulay asks, " Is there always such a 

* T. vi. Comm. in Is. cap. ii. p. 24. 
f T. i. Comm. in Is. cap. ii. p. 604. 



Marks of the True Church. 153 

visible body ? Was there such a visible body in 
the year 1500? If not, why the year 1839? K 
there were such a body in the year 1500, what 
was it? Was it the Church of Rome? And how 
can the Church of England be orthodox now if the 
Church of Rome was orthodox then?" * 

The ramifications of Protestantism, compared 
with the Catholic Church in visibility, are but of 
yesterday. Viewed by the light of pure reason 
and divine faith they are only effects produced by 
secondary causes, and therefore are imperfect. 
Being of man they are restless and as fluctuating as 
the ocean's billows ; and as ocean waves change their 
course with the wind, so do they with every wind 
of doctrine. Those frail crafts, without an infal- 
lible pilot to guide them, without canvas or steam 
to give them motion towards heaven, remain sta- 
tionary on the ocean of time, and therefore, never 
arrive at a haven of blissful rest. Those who have 
taken passage in them foolishly think they are 
nearing the desired port ; but they are not, because 
the ships in which they sail have their prows to 
the West and not to the East, to the mammon of 
this world and not to God. With the divinely 
founded and visible Church, the bark of Peter, it 
is not so. Her prow is to the East, to Jesus her 

* Macaulay's Miscellany, p. 392. 



154 ^ Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

founder ; at her helm is the Eternal Word, who 
steers her safely over the sand-bars and hidden 
rocks of infidelity to heaven's delightful port. 
From time to time she is tempest-tossed, but she 
cannot perish, because she is built upon a rock 
against which the gates of hell shall not prevail 

The next mark of the true Church is Indefecti- 
bility. As the Church of God was always visible 
she did not fail ; if she failed for one moment she 
would cease to be visible ; but as she was always 
visible, she therefore did not fail. Her indefecti- 
bility is affirmed by our Lord, who says, " And I 
say to thee, That thou art Peter, a Rock, and on 
this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of 
hell shall not prevail against it."* This language, 
uttered by uncreated Truth, contains a twofold 
promise, namely, that neither the rock nor the 
Church built upon it would fail. At one and the 
same time our Lord endued His Church and 
Peter, the Rock on whom it was built, with inde- 
fectibility. Now an indefectible foundation on 
which an indefectible Church was built conveys 
the idea of infallibility being inherent in both. As 
the gates of hell will not prevail against Peter, the 
Rock, nor against the Church built upon the Rock, 
it follows that Peter and his successors, in their 

* Matt. xvi. 1 8. 



Marks of the True Church. 155 

official capacity as exponents of revealed truths, 
are infallible. This conclusion revealed religion 
demands, because a Church founded upon revela- 
tion and composed of living, visible members 
must have a living, visible head, an infallible inter- 
preter of that revelation ; otherwise revealed 
truths would produce schism. That Peter, the 
Rock, was endued with infallibility is clearly evi- 
dent from the following: " And the Lord said, 
Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have 
you/' vpias (all the Apostles), " that he may sift you, 
as wheat, but I have prayed for thee [Ilepi sov\ 
that thy faith fail not ; and, thou, being once con- 
verted, confirm thy brethren/' * From this it will 
be seen that our blessed Lord prayed to His 
heavenly Father that the faith of Peter would 
never fail, and therefore, against him and his suc- 
cessors, as visible heads of the Church, and as 
exponents of faith and morals, the powers of dark- 
ness will not prevail. The Church of God, there- 
fore, through her visible head, will never cease to 
define what is and what is not of faith till the end 
of time. The lamp of the Holy Ghost cannot go 
out, because He feeds and trims it. The universe 
will return to chaos before the Church of God or 



Luke xxii. 31, 32. 



156 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

her visible head will approve of heresy or immo- 
rality. 

Our Lord says, " All power is given to me in 
heaven and earth; go ye, therefore, teach all 
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching 
them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
manded you ; and, behold, / am with you all days, 
even to the consummation of the world."* " Thou 
shalt call His name Jesus. He shall be great, and 
shall be called the Son of the Most High ; and the 
Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of 
David His father and he shall reign in the house 
of Jacob forever ; and of His kingdom there shall 
be no end!' \ 

Now, how could that Church fail in which and 
with which the Son of God is? How could that 
Church which is guided by the Eternal Word fail ? 
It is easier to suppose the annihilation of matter 
than to suppose that the Church of God could fail. 
It is as impossible for it to fail as it is for heaven 
to cease to be. Christ, our Lord, was the wise 
Man who built his House upon a rock: " And the 
rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, 
and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for 
it was founded upon a rock," % 

* Matt, xxviii. 18-20. \ Luke i. 31-33. % Matt. vii. 25. 



Marks of the True Church, 1 5 7 

St. Ambrose says : " The Church seems to wane 
like the moon [on account of persecution], but she 
fails not. She may be overcast with clouds, but 
she cannot fail." Obumbrari potest, deficere non 
potest* 

St. Chrysostom says : " Withdraw not from the 
Church, for nothing is stronger ; she is higher than 
heaven, more extended than earth ; she never 
grows old ; her age is always vigorous ; for this 
reason the Scripture, showing her firmness and 
immovableness [indefectibility], calls her a moun- 
tain.! . . . There is nothing equal to the Church. 
Tell me not of walls and arms ; they grow old with 
time, but the Church never ; walls barbarians de- 
stroy, but the Church not even demons can over- 
come." % 

In another place the same Father says : " It 
is the same Peter to whom He [Christ] said, 
Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build 
my Church. Therefore, where Peter is, there the 
Church is; where the Church is, there death is 
not, but eternal life." § Ubi ecclesia, ibi nulla mors, 
sed vita eterna. 

Will indefectibility be found in any denomina- 
tion outside the Catholic Church? No. Why? 

* T. i. lib. iv. cap. ii. p. 66. f T. iii. n. 6, p. 467. 

% Ubi sup. n. 1, p. 461. § T. i. in Ps. 30, p. 879. 



158 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

Because all the sects refused to obey the words of 
the Son of God, and like the foolish man built 
their house upon sand, " and the rain fell, and the 
floods came, and it fell, and great was the fall 
thereof." * Can any of those heresies that perse- 
cuted the Church in the early ages of her history 
trace their origin to the Apostles ? Not one of 
them; they have long since sunk into oblivion, 
and no longer exist. They were, but are not. 
The same fate awaits the Protestantism of to-day. 
There is no denying it, because it has adopted 
the views of Socinus and those of Voltaire and 
Hume, and, therefore, from the nature of things, 
must cease to exist. 

From the indefectibility of the Catholic Church 
follows her Apostolicity. Both these marks are 
inseparable; the former demands the latter as es- 
sentially as a building does a foundation. This fol- 
lows as a consequence from the fact that our Lord 
built an indefectible Church on Peter, the Rock, 
whom He constituted its visible head and teacher 
of the whole world. Ite at docete omnes gentes. As 
the unity of faith delivered by Christ to the Apos- 
tles had to be preached to " all nations," apostolic 
succession was necessary; otherwise the founda- 
tion of the Church could not be laid. Now, as the 



* Matt. vii. 27. 



Marks of the True Church. 159 

Apostles were men whose term of existence was 
no longer than that of other men, they could not 
" preach the Gospel to every living creature," and 
therefore without apostolical succession their mis- 
sion was vain because beyond their power of fulfill- 
ment. The Apostles before giving expansion to 
the Church received from Christ unity of faith, 
their priestly power and mission to preach this 
faith to all nations. This faith, pure and holy, this 
divine power and mission, they transmitted to 
their successors, who will exercise it to the end 
of time. From this it will be seen that in the 
Catholic Church, established by the Son of God, 
extended over the world by the Apostles, pastors 
truly sent and empowered to preach the Gospel 
as Christ was sent by His Father will never be 
wanting. 

That our blessed Lord would supply His Church 
with successive, faithful pastors was foretold by 
the prophet Isaias, who says, " Upon thy walls, O 
Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen ; all the 
day and all the night they shall never hold their 
peace."* This St. Paul confirms, where he says, 
" And some, indeed, He gave to be apostles, and 
some prophets, and others evangelists, and others 
pastors and teachers/' f To the Romans he wrote, 

* Is. lxii. 5. t E P h - iv - "• 



160 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

"How shall they hear without a preacher? and 
how shall they preach unless they be sent f To 
Timothy he wrote, " For this cause I left thee at 
Crete, that thou shouldest set in order things that 
are wanting, and shouldest ordain priests in every 
city as I also appointed thee." * Saul and Barna- 
bus were sent to preach to Seleucia by the bishop 
of Antioch. " Then they, fasting and praying, 
and imposing their hands upon them, sent them 
away. So they, being sent by the Holy Ghost, 
went to Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to 
Cyprus." f 

St. Ephrem, in his comments on the seventh 
chapter of Kings and twenty-first verse, says, 
" The two pillars signify the two worlds, the visi- 
ble and invisible ; both support the dwelling-place 
of all nations, the Church of Christ ; the spirits, to 
wit, that are sent to minister, signify the prophets 
and Apostles, and their successors unto the govern- 
ment of the Church." % St. Augustin says : " The 
agreement of people and nations keeps me in the 
Catholic Church : authority, begun by miracles, 
nourished with hope, encouraged by charity, 
strengthened by antiquity, keeps me in it ; the 
succession of priests, from the chair of Peter, to 
whom the Lord after His resurrection committed 



* Tim. i. 5. f Acts xiii - 3. 4- X Comm. in 1 Reg. t, i. p. 459. 



Marks of the True Church. 161 

His sheep to be fed, down to the present bishop, 
keeps me in it." * 

St. Clement, who flourished in the first century, 
says : " The Apostles have preached to us from 
the Lord Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ from God. 
Christ, therefore, was sent by God, and the Apos- 
tles by Christ. The Apostles, preaching through 
countries and cities, appointed (ordained and con- 
secrated) their first-fruits, having proved them by 
the Spirit, bishops and deacons." f St. Irenasus 
says : " The blessed Apostles, having founded the 
Church, committed the sacred office of the episco- 
pacy to Linus, of whom Paul makes mention in his 
epistle to Timothy. To him succeeded Anaclitus, 
and after him Clement. But to this Clement suc- 
ceeded Evaristus, and to Evaristus Alexander. 
Next to him Sixtus was appointed (elected), and 
after him Telesphorus ; next to him Hyginus, then 
Pius, after whom Anicetus. To Anicetus succeeded 
Soter, and to him, the twelfth in succession from 
Peter, succeeded Eleutherius, who now holds the 
episcopate. By this order of succession both the 
tradition which is in the Church from the Apostles 
and the preaching of truth have come down to 
us." $ Yes, and in the same way they have come 



* T. viii. contr. Fund. Manichei. f Clem. Ep. i ad Cor. n. 42. 
X Adv. Haeres. lib. iii. cap. iii. p. 175. 



1 62 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

down to us of the nineteenth century, and shall so 
continue to come down to the end of time, because 
the Spirit of Truth is in the Church and she is in 
Him. 

As Jesus Christ was sent by His heavenly 
Father, He sent His Apostles, who through Peter, 
the Rock, sent their successors, with power to 
send others, and in this way a lawful and apostol- 
ical succession has been kept up in the Church of 
God from the days of the Apostles to the present 
time. From this it will be seen that the Catholic 
Church will always possess unity of faith and 
apostolical succession of pastors truly sent, en- 
dowed with those powers delegated to the Apos- 
tles by Jesus Christ. This, then, is the only 
entrance, the only door, into the sanctuary of the 
living God. Entrance by any other door is de- 
clared by Christ to be robbery. " Amen, I say 
unto you, He that entereth not by the door into 
the sheepfold, but climbeth up another way, the 
same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth 
by the door is the -shepherd of the sheep." * 

From this it follows that every approved Cath- 
olic priest can truthfully say to his congregation 
that he is sent to them by his bishop to preach the 
Gospel to them and break to them the Bread of 

*John x. I, 2. 



Marks of the True Chztrch. 163 

Life, as God sent His divine Son, and as the Son 
sent His Apostles. Of his divine right to teach 
his flock authoritatively no one can doubt, because 
the bishop who imposed hands on him and sent 
him is in communion with Peter, the Rock. 

Can any Protestant preacher tell his congrega- 
tion that he is delegated by a successor of the 
Apostles to preach the Gospel to them ? He can- 
not. Why ? Because his religion came into the 
world fifteen hundred years too late to be apostol- 
ical. It follows, therefore, that since he was not 
clothed with divine authority to preach the Word 
of God, he has no more right to preach than any 
of his flock. It is a fact which cannot be denied, 
because attested by history, that the Protestant 
denominations, except the " king-made Church," 
which claims to be apostolical, ignore episcopal 
succession, and attach little or no importance to 
ordination. That this is true is evident from 
Luther's famous Bull hurled at the episcopacy. 
This heresiarch says, " Give ear now, you bishops, 
you visors of the devil; Dr. Luther will read you 
a Bull and a Reform which will not sound sweet 
in your ears. Dr. Luther's Bull and Reform is 
this : Whosoever spend their labor, persons, and 
fortunes to lay waste your episcopacies and extin- 
guish your government are the beloved of God, true 
Christians and opposers of the devil's ordinances. 



164 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

On the other hand, whosoever support the govern- 
ment of bishops, and willingly obey them, are the 
devil's ministers. Bishops follow the instincts of 

their in all that they do ; they are dogs who 

love to bathe their feet in blood. They resemble 
Cain, and will never have any rest till they have 
killed Abel."* Of the Pope this arch-reformer 
says : " The spirit of antichrist is in his soul, and 
the Turk in his body ; may the name of the Pope 
be damned ; may his kingdom be abolished, and 
his will restrained. If I thought that God did not 
hear my prayer, / would address myself to the 
devil" \ Of Almighty God this " dazzling light" 
of Protestantism says : " I owe more to my little 
Catherine and Philip than even to God, who has 
made many mistakes. If I had assisted at the crea- 
tion I would have given Him good advice. "% 

Although Doctor Martin Luther expressed so 
low an opinion of the office of bishops, and enter- 
tained such intense hatred towards the head of the 
Catholic Church, contrary to the Word of God, 
which told him he must love his neighbor as him- 
self, yet, at the request of the Elector of Saxony, 
he assumed episcopal authority and consecrated 
Armsdorf bishop of Naumburg. On a later day 



* Tisch-Reden, p. 375. f Ubi sup. p. 213. 

% Ubi sup. p. 214. 



Marks of the True Church. 165 

in the eventful history of Protestantism a self- 
appointed " reformer," John Wesley, did the same 
thing. This man, the founder of Methodism, with- 
out a remote shadow of right to teach or preach 
the Word of God, assumed episcopal authority, 
ordained Whatcoat and Vesey priests and conse- 
crated Coke a bishop. This assumption of episco- 
pal authority sowed the seeds of schism in the 
" holy" vineyard of Methodism so plentifully that 
Charles Wesley refused to labor any longer with 
his brother John.* 

Apostoiicity cannot any more be found in the 
" king-made Church" than in the Lutheran or Meth- 
odist. In this respect it stands on the same plane 
with them. Cranmer, "solemnly" and openly, 
preached that "princes and governors, as well as 
bishops, could ordain priests, and that no consecra- 
tion is appointed by Scripture to make a bishop." f 
This, no doubt, was pleasing to the ears of a mon- 
arch who was declared pope of the Church by 
an Act of Parliament. Barlow preached openly, 
and " solemnly too," "that the kings appoint- 
ment sufficeth, without consecration, to make a 
bishop.";}; 

The dignity of human reason, the inexorable law 



* Whitehead's Life of J. and C. Wesley, f Burnet's Hist. Refor. 
X Collin's Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 135. 



1 66 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

of logic, and the inherent attributes of truth demand 
the inference that, since apostolical succession is 
found only in the Catholic Church, she alone is the 
kingdom of God on earth, the pillar and ground of 
truth, and therefore, that true pastors, lawfully 
sent and divinely empowered to preach the Gos- 
pel, will never be wanting in her sanctuary. 

Then, the Catholic Church possesses not only 
unity, visibility, indefectibility, and apostolicity, 
but Universality also ? Yes. To her alone this 
mark belongs ; for, as we shall shortly see, this 
mark was freely conceded to her from the dawn 
of her existence. When she was sent on her 
divine mission to Christianize the world, she un- 
furled the Gospel standard at Jerusalem, sowed 
the seed of Christianity there which bore fruit a 
thousandfold, and from thence rooted it in all 
parts of the habitable globe, thus verifying the 
prophecy of Malachias, who said, " From the ris- 
ing of the sun to the going down, my name is 
great among the Gentiles; and in every place 
there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name 
a clean oblation." * The clean oblation the pro- 
phet saw, through the light of the Holy Ghost, 
offered to God from the rising to the going down 
of the sun, was the holy Sacrifice of the Mass which 

* Mai. i. n. 



Marks of the True Church. 167 

is daily offered to God in the Latin, United Greek, 
Armenian, Chaldaic, Syro-Chaldaic, Maronite, and 
Coptic rites. The light and glory of this unbloody 
Sacrifice flood the whole world, that Jew and Gen- 
tile, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, may be 
led by their glare into the bosom of the One Fold. 
The language of the Redeemer recorded by St. 
Matthew is verified to the letter, for the " Gospel 
of the kingdom is preached to the whole world/' * 
and all nations have been gathered together by 
unity of faith into the one, holy, Roman Catholic 
Church. " Faith," says St. Paul, " cometh by 
hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. But 
I say, have they not heard ? Yes, verily, their 
sound hath gone forth into all the earth, and their 
words unto the ends of the world." f 

St. Ignatius, who flourished in the second cen- 
tury, says : " Where the bishop is, there let the 
collective body of believers be ; even as where 
Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church" 
(Ehsitj eis KadoXiKtf SKxXrjSia).^ St. Cyril of Jeru- 
salem says : " Now the Church is called Catholic 
because i't is throughout the whole world, and 
because it teaches universally [catholically] and 
completely all doctrines which ought to come to 



* Matt. xxiv. 14. f Romans x. 17, 18. 

X Ep. ad Smyrn. n. 8. 



1 68 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

men's knowledge concerning things visible and 
invisible, heavenly and earthly. ... It is there- 
fore rightly called church [exHXrjSia], because it 
calls forth and assembles all men." * St. Jerome, 
commenting on the fifty-fourth chapter and fifth 
verse of Isaias, says : " It is manifest that this is 
not said of Jerusalem, but it relates to the whole 
Church of Christ, whose inheritance is the posses- 
sion [spiritual] of the world." f 

. Can universality be found in any of the Protes- 
tant denominations? It cannot. None of them 
claim it except the king-made Church. Although 
this denomination claims universality, yet it is not 
any more universal than its heretical cognates. 
This Church, " established by law in England," in 
order to claim universality asserts that it is apos- 
tolical ; but it is not any more of the Apostles 
than it is of God. Since this Church did not pre- 
exist its founder, Henry VIII., it could neither be 
of the Apostles nor of God, and therefore, could 
not be catholic or universal. The shadowy uni- 
versality it has is confined to the British posses- 
sions, and is the result of persecution the elements 
of which it is not hard to analyze, although the 
consequences are many and dreadful. As the 



* Catech. xviii. n. 22-28, p. 294. 
f T. iv. lib. xv. in Is. col. 631. 



Marks of the True Church. 169 

founders of this sect built it upon sensuality, en- 
riched it by spoliation, and gave it its universality 
by persecution, it was but natural that human 
blood would copiously flow as a result. 

Luther, the founder of Protestantism, who 
caused the Germans to rise up and slaughter 
each other to the number of one hundred thou- 
sand, said : " I do not wish to turn a sword into a 
pen ; the Word of God is a sword ; it draws after 
it fire and ruin, scandal and perdition; it is like 
the bear on the high-road, the lioness in the forest. 
If you understand the spirit of reform, you must 
know that it cannot work without tumult and 
sedition. Talk not of my passion. See, nothing 
lasts that is done with calm ! What will you ? 
The Word of God never goes forth without 
trouble and tumult and thunders on the heights. 
One must renounce peace or the divine Word. 
The Lord is come to bring war and not peace. 
I am seized with terror! [vce terrce\ Woe to the 
earth !" * This language contrasts poorly with 
that of Jesus, the Apostles, and their successors, 
who preached peace on earth to men of good will, 
It contrasts poorly, too, with the conduct of the 
early Christians, which Pliny the Younger de- 
scribed in a letter to the emperor Trajan as fol- 

* Odin's Life of Luther, vol. i. 



1 70 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

lows : " I have examined the conduct of the Chris- 
tians for myself. They are accustomed to assemble 
on a certain day before sunrise and to sing hymns 
in honor of Christ. . . . They obligate themselves 
by an oath to avoid the commission of crime — to 
commit neither adultery, robbery, nor fraud ; 
never to break their word nor violate a trust." * 

As Luther saw that the tragedy he was playing 
would end in persecution and the shedding of in- 
nocent blood, so, too, did Henry VIII. see that 
the- part he was acting would produce the same 
results. But, like Luther, he did not care, for his 
passions of lust and avarice must be satisfied ; 
and hence he tore the English Catholic Church 
from the spiritual direction of the Pope, from the 
invisible direction of Jesus Christ, and constituted 
himself its visible head and spiritual custodian. 
By an Act of Parliament, he and his successors 
were created popes of " the Church by law estab- 
lished/' vicegerents of Jesus Christ, and channels 
of sacramental grace. 

Macaulay says : " The laws which declared him 
[Henry VIII.] supreme in ecclesiastical matters 
were rudely drawn and in general terms. . . . 
For the founders of the English Church wrote and 
acted in an age of violent fermentation. They 

* Plin. lib. x. Ep. 97. 



A nglicanism. 171 

therefore often contradicted each other, and some- 
times themselves. That the king was, under Christ, 
sole head of the Church was a doctrine which they 
all with one voice affirmed. . . . What Henry 
and his favorite counsellors meant at one time by 
the supremacy was certainly nothing less than the 
whole power of the keys. The king was to be pope 
of his kingdom, the vicar of God, the expositor of 
Catholic verity. . . . He proclaimed that all 
jurisdiction, spiritual as well as temporal, was de- 
rived from him alone, and that it was in his power 
to co?ifer spiritual authority and take it away"* 
In another place this historian says of Protestant- 
ism, or rather Anglicanism: "But Protestant in- 
tolerance, despotism in an upstart sect, infallibility 
claimed by guides who acknowledged that they 
passed the greater part of their lives in error, 
restraints imposed on the liberty of private judg- 
ment by rulers who could vindicate their own pro- 
ceedings only by asserting the liberty of private 
judgment — these things could not be borne long. 
Those who had pulled down the crucifix could 
not long continue to persecute for the surplice. It 
required no great sagacity to perceive the incon- 
sistency and dishonesty of men who, dissenting 
from almost all Christendom, would suffer none 

* Macaulay's Hist, Eng. vol. i. p f 60. 



1 72 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

to dissent from themselves; who demanded free- 
dom of conscience, yet refused to grant it ; who 
execrated persecution, yet persecuted ; who urged 
reason against authority of one opponent, and 
authority against the reasons of another. . . . 
Cranmer could vindicate himself from the charge 
of being a heretic only by arguments which made 
him out a murderer/' * 

The newly organized Church, in the opinion of 
its founders, required the mark Universality to 
give it a shadowy semblance to the one, true 
Church ; but this was easier desired than accom- 
plished. However, as Henry was now pope, he 
concluded that he could procure this necessary 
mark for his Church. But here a difficulty pre- 
sented itself which he could not well obviate ; 
namely, by what means was he to obtain this 
note ? Was it by meek, prayerful, or physical 
means ? Being a second Nero, he was not long 
in coming to a conclusion, which was, " that the 
youthful Anglican Church be accepted as uni- 
versal through the agency of brute force." Would 
not this result in the slaughter of his innocent 
subjects? Yes; but what did this royal monster 
care about the shedding of innocent blood ! What 
he cared for, wanted, sought after, and desired 

* Macaulay's Miscellany, pp. 153, 154, 



A nglicanism. 1 7 3 

ardently, was a shadowy universality to conceal 
the deformity of a Church begotten in sensuality, 
baptized in blood, and fed by spoliation. The 
emissaries of this self-appointed pope who were 
delegated to give universality to his Church 
were a sanguinary race, whose motto was, " Cursed 
be he who keeps his sword from blood." That 
they acted up to the base instincts of their mas- 
ter, history conclusively proves. 

Of this impious king Macaulay says : " He at- 
tempted to constitute an Anglican Church which 
would differ from the Roman Catholic on point of 
supremacy, and on this point alone. His success 
in this attempt was extraordinary. The force of 
his character, the singularly favorable situation in 
which he stood with respect to foreign powers, 

the IMMENSE WEALTH which the SPOLIATION of 

the abbeys placed at his disposal, and the support 
of that class which halted between two opinions, 
enabled him to hang as traitors those who owned 
the authority of the Pope." * 

In another place the same historian says : " But 
if there were in any part of the world a national 
Church regarded as heretical by four fifths of the 
nation committed to its care — a Church estab- 
lished and maintained by the SWORD — a Church 

* Macaulay, Hist. Eng. vol. i. p. 54. 



1 74 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

producing twice as many riots as conversions — a 
Church which, though possessing great wealth 
and power, and though long backed by persecut- 
ing taws, had, in the course of many generations, 
been found unable to propagate its doctrines, and 
barely able to maintain its ground — a Church so 
odious that fraud and violence, when used against 
the clear rights of property, were generally re- 
garded as fair play — a Church whose ministers 
were preaching to desolate walls, and with diffi- 
culty obtaining their lawful subsistence by help of 
bayonets, — such a Church, on our principles, could 
not, we must own, be defended/' * 

Cobbett says : " It is easy to imagine that no 
man's property or life could have security with 
a power like this in the hands of such a man as 
Henry VIII. was, as the Magna Charta had been 
trampled under foot from the moment that the 
Pope's supremacy was assailed. . . . The trials 
were for a long time a mere mockery, and the ac- 
cused were condemned to death not only without 
being arraigned and heard in their defence, but 
in numerous cases without being apprised of the 
crimes for which they were executed. We have 
read of the Beys of Algiers and the Beys of Tunis, 
but never heard of their deeds to be, in point of 

* Macaulay's Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 399, 400. 



A nglzcanzsm. 175 

injustice and cruelty, compared with those of this 
man, whom Burnet calls the first-born of the 
English Reformation. ... The Reformation was 
cherished and fed by plunder and devastation. 
There were in England at the time we are speak- 
ing of 645 monasteries, besides 90 colleges, no 
hospitals, and 2374 chanteries and free chapels; 
all of which were seized, and by the king granted 
to those who aided and abetted in the work of plunder. 
. . . In England the penal code, during the reign 
of James II., stripped the Roman Catholic peers 
of their hereditary right to sit in the House of 
Commons. It took from them all the right to 
vote at elections. It shut them out from all offices 
of power and trust. It fined them £20 a month 
for keeping away from the Anglican Church, to 
go to which they deemed apostasy. ... If a 
married woman kept away from church, she for- 
feited two thirds of her dower. ... It punished 
the saying of Mass with a fine of £120, and the 
hearing of Mass with a fine of £60. Any Roman 
Catholic priest who returned from beyond the seas 
and who did not abjure his faith within three days 
was punished with hanging, ripping out of his bowels, 
and quartering. In Ireland the code was still 
more ferocious, more hideously bloody. Catholic 
schoolmasters, public or private, were punished 
with imprisonment and banishment. The clergy 



1 76 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

were not allowed to be in the country without 
being registered, and rewards were given for dis- 
covering them : £50 for an archbishop, £20 for a 
bishop, and £10 for a priest. No Catholic could 
purchase any manors. Any one of the Anglican 
Church could, if he suspected any one of holding 
property in trust for a Catholic, or of being con- 
cerned in any sale, lease, mortgage, or other con- 
tract for a Catholic, file a bill against the suspected 
trustee, and take the estate or property from him. 
All marriages between Anglicans and Catholics 
were annulled. Every priest who celebrated a 
marriage between an Anglican and a Catholic, or 
between two Anglicans, was condemned to be 
hanged."* And yet, in the face of this evidence, 
my scientist had the effrontery to assert " that the 
absorption of the life-blood of Ireland was not a 
result of oppression, but of a religious system 
which paralyzed the manhood of its people." 

The last mark of the Church of God is Sanctity. 
The sanctity of the Church followed as a conse- 
quence from the other marks by which she is 
known from every other sect. Now since there 
is but one, universal Church which has received 
authority from Jesus Christ to teach all nations, 
with a promise of indefectibility to the end of 

* Cobbett's Hist. Refor. pp. 54, 55, 235, 236. 



Marks of the True Church. 177 

time, it is manifest that the teaching of this one, 
universal Church must be holy ; otherwise it would 
not be the pillar and ground of truth, and the gates 
of hell would prevail against it. But this is im- 
possible because the promises of Christ cannot 
fail. As the Church is in Christ, and as He is in 
the Church, the conclusion must be accepted that 
all those who are in and of the Church by prac- 
tical faith are in Christ, and therefore are holy. 
The Church is holy because her Founder, Jesus 
Christ, is holy, and because the Spirit of Truth 
abides in her and Jesus Christ, her visible head, 
directs her. She is holy because she preaches no 
doctrine that does not tend towards holiness. If 
she were to preach politics, speak continually on 
questions purely secular and antagonistic to sound 
morality, as false religions do, then indeed her claim 
to sanctity might be questioned ; but since she does 
not, it follows that she is holy. Not being of the 
world, but of God, she speaks of things ineffable to 
her children, addresses pure essences, angels, arch- 
angels, cherubim, seraphim, thrones and domina- 
tions in the language of intercessoryprayer, while 
she freely and confidently lays thespiritual wants 
of her children before God, who inclines His ear 
to her soft voice and grants her petition. 

It is true that those of her children who shut 
their ears to her mild admonitions and wise coun- 



1 78 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

sels, who violate her laws, despise her precepts 
and commands, are not holy. These prodigal 
children of the Church are only nominal Catho- 
lics, whom the world lauds and calls liberal! 
How they promote the cause of Catholicity we 
shall see in the course of this work. 

The Church of God is holy because " Christ 
loved it and delivered Himself up for it, that He 
might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water 
in the Word of Life ; that He might present it 
to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or 
wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be 
HOLY and without blemish." * Of the members 
who compose the mystic body of Christ, St. Peter 
says: " But you are a chosen generation, a kingly 
priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people, that 
you may declare His virtues who hath called you 
out of darkness into His marvellous light." f The 
Psalmist says, "Holiness becometh Thy house, O 
Lord, unto length of days." % The prophet Isaias 
foretold the sanctity of the Church when he said, 
" And a path and a way shall be there ; and it shall 
be called the holy way ; the unclean shall not pass 
over it ; and this shall be unto you a straight way, 
so that fools shall not err therein." § 



* Eph. v. 25-27. * f 1 Peter ii. 9. 

% Ps. xciii. 5. § Is. xxxv. 8. 



Marks of the True Church. 1 79 

St. Cyril, in explaining Isaias xxxiii., says, "The 
rock is Christ . . . and the cavern that is in Christ 
may be understood to be the Church, that dwelling- 
place of the saints, that roof over the pious, under 
which the just have their abode. " * In explaining 
Numbers ix., he says, " As soon as that truest 
tabernacle, the Church, was reared up and ap- 
peared upon earth, it was filled with the glory of 
Christ. . . . Christ, therefore, filled the Church 
with his own glory. . . . Now, when that cloud 
was taken up, the tabernacle was at the same time 
raised, and when the cloud stood still, the taber- 
nacle was also pitched, and the Israelites acted uni- 
formly with the cloud ; for the Church accom- 
panies or follows Christ everywhere," {Enerai 
yap rj SHuXr/^za navraxi) tgo XpiSroS), " and the 
holy multitude is never separated from Him that 
calls them to salvation.' ' + 

Arnobius Junior says, " And now, even to this 
day do the sons [successors] of the Apostles sit 
upon their chairs, having also themselves the 
power of binding. But this has been granted to 
them because the Lord would not have the syna- 
gogue of error, but chose holy Sion, the Church of 
the right faith, wherein the widows are blessed in 



* Tom. i. lib. i. De Adorat. in Sp. et Ver. 
f Ubi sup. lib. v. p. 164. 



p. 31. 



180 A Catholic Priest and Scientists, 

charity ; wherein the poor are satisfied with the 
bread of mercy ; wherein the priests are clothed 
with justice and the saints with great joy." * 

Can sanctity be found in Protestantism? No 
more than the other marks that distinguish the 
Church of God can. Protestantism and sanctity 
are extremes that will never unite, because one is 
the negation of the other. How can Protestantism 
be holy, which is imbued with the leaven of its 
founders, and which has left on the pages of his- 
tory deeds of blood and oppression so dark and 
melancholy, so unjust and diabolical, that the 
waters of the Atlantic would not suffice to wash 
them out? How can Protestantism be holy, 
which conspired against Jesus Christ and the 
members of His mystic body, which disseminates 
error for truth, and makes its votaries the sport 
and playthings of unreal opinion? As this com- 
pound was built on sensuality, baptized in blood, 
nurtured on spoliation, and expanded by persecu- 
tion, it was but natural that it would cherish these 
to the exclusion of sanctity. This Luther dis- 
tinctly expressed in his letter to Melancthon in 
which he says, " Be a sinner, and sin boldly; but 
more boldly still believe, and rejoice in Jesus 
Christ the conqueror of sin, death, and the world. 
Sin is our lot here below. This life is not the abode 

* Comm. in Ps. cxxxi. p. 316. 



Marks of the True Church. 1 8 1 

of justice ; but we expect, says St. Peter, a new 
heaven and a new earth wherein dwells justice. It is 
sufficient that by the riches of God's glory we 
may know the Lamb who takes away the sins of 
the world ; SIN cannot deprive us of Him, even if in 
the same day we were to commit a thousand mur- 
ders or a thousand adzdteries." * 

In his work de Servo Arbitrio, he says, "Free 
will is an empty term; for the reason that if God 
foresaw that Judas would be a traitor, he neces- 
sarily became one. Man's will is like 3 horse : if 
God sit upon it, it goes or acts as God would have 
it ; if the devil ride it, it goes or acts as the devil 
would have it; nor can the will choose its rider, 
for each of them, God and the devil, strives 
to get possession of it." f Again he says, " Unless 
faith be WITHOUT good works, it is not faith 
at all, and will not justify. " \ Calvin says, " God 
requires nothing of us but faith. He asks noth- 
ing of us but that we believe. I do not hesi- 

* "Esto peccator et pecca fortiter; sed fortius fide et gaude in 
Christo, qui victor est peccati, mortis et mundi; peccandum est 
quandui hie sumus. Vita haec non est habitatio justitiae; sed ex- 
pectamus, ait Petrus, ccelos novos et terram novam, in quibus 
justitia habitabit. Sufficit quod agnovimus per divitias glorise Dei 
Agnum qui tollit peccata mundi; ab hoc non avellet nos peccatum, 
etiam si millies, millies uno die fornicemur aut occidamus." (Mel- 
anchthoni, 21st Aug. 1521.) 

f Luth. Op. Witt. torn. ii. fol. 437. % Ibid. torn. i. fol. 361. 



1 82 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

tate to assert that the will of God makes all THINGS 
necessary"* In another place he says, "Men by 
the free will of God, without any demerit of their 
own, axe predestined to eternal death" f 

These extracts fully attest the sanctity that pul- 
sated in the heart of Protestantism in Germany. 
The seditions, massacres, burning at the stake, 
spoliation of honestly acquired property, suppres- 
sion of inherent rights, expatriation, legal starva- 
tion, in one word, the universal misery, woe, 
desolation, and unprecedented calamities that 
Protestantism, in the name of a just God and the 
sanctity of religion, rained *down on Germany, 
Switzerland, England, and Ireland fully attest its 
claim to sanctity. 

In those evil days it would seem that the angry, 
crested billows of hell escaped to earth with 
legions of devils, who, with resistless fury, drove 
millions of evil men to the commission of crime 
that paralyzes our moral sensibilities. The angry, 
prescriptive, death-dealing storm which burst in 
all its fury on the Church of God is faintly painted 
by a Protestant writer, who described a devastat- 
ing scene that took place in London in 1780 
through an impulse of the inherent spirit of Angli- 
canism. He says : 

" Formidable multitudes of demented, fierce, 

* Calv. in Joan. vi. t Ibid. 



A nglicanism. 1 8 3 

mocking, destroying men, swarming on like in- 
sects ; noise, smoke, light, darkness, frolic, anger, 
laughter, groans, plunder, fear and ruin ; the vest- 
ments of priests and rich fragments of altar vessels, 
borne as trophies by leaders like hideous madmen ; 
after them, a dense throng, some singing, some 
shouting in triumph ; some menacing the specta- 
tors as they passed ; some with precious works of 
saintly art, on which they spent their rage, as if 
they had been alive, rending them and hurling 
the scattered morsels high into the air ; a vision of 
demon heads and savage eyes, and sticks and iron 
bars uplifted in the air and whirled about ; a be- 
wildering horror in which so much was seen, and 
yet so little, which seemed so long and yet so short, 
in which there were so many phantoms, not to be 
forgotten all through life, and yet so many things 
that could not be observed in that distracting 
glimpse ; it flitted onward and w r as gone." * 

Protestantism cannot be holy because sin and 
error entered into its components ; it cannot be 
holy because its nature is destructive and sub- 
versive of charity, and hence it produces nothing 
but sin and discord. In the moral order it is a 
frost that bites truth, a pestilence that spreads woe 
all around. Its philosophy, because separated 
from true religion, is barren, dreary, erroneous, 

* Dickens. 



1 84 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

and dark ; its darkness is continuous because it 
desires not, seeks not, the light of divine faith. 
Protestantism, from its nature and organization, 
must be sensual, must hate, as Catholicity, from 
its nature and components, must be pure and 
must love. The mission of Protestantism is to 
persecute Catholics in county-houses, in jails, 
reformatories, and penal institutions. In Switzer- 
land, Prussia, Scotland, Poland, and Ireland it is 
still doing the work of Cain, and will so continue 
to the end of time, thus verifying the divine pre- 
diction, that the world would be divided by the 
doctrine of the Cross. 

But although the world is so divided, and al- 
though the angry, hostile division continues with 
unabated fury to assail the bark of Peter — the 
Church of Christ — yet her onward, prosperous 
voyage over the ocean of time cannot be retarded, 
for her colors thrown to the breeze are stamped 
with unity, visibility, perpetuity, universality, 
sanctity, and apostolicity, while Jesus Christ 
directs her helm, keeps her prow towards the 
East — towards heaven, towards God, — and hence 
the powers of hell will not prevail against her 
who, 

" Fixed in the rolling flood of endless years, 
The pillar of the eternal plan appears; 
The raving storm and dashing wave defies, 
Built by the Architect who built the skies." 



CHAPTER VII. 

DOES THE BLESSED EUCHARIST CONTAIN, REALLY 
AND TRULY, THE BODY AND BLOOD, THE SOUL 
AND DIVINITY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST 
UNDER THE APPEARANCE OF BREAD AND WINE ? 

The assertion that " the Catholic Church makes 
a bread-god, which she forces her children to wor- 
ship and receive under penalty of being cut off 
from her communion/' is stupid nonsense and 
impious falsehood. That men who plume them- 
selves on their knowledge of science would make 
such an insensate charge against the Church of 
God is strange ; but at this we must not wonder 
or be shocked, because such is the usual judgment 
pronounced by infidelity against revealed religion. 
Atheists, on the testimony of their senses and 
reason, object to the Eucharistic dogma, as did 
Nicodemus to the doctrine of regeneration, St. 
Thomas to the resurrection of Christ, and the 
Jews to the institution of the Bread of Life, who 
said among themselves, How can this man give us His 
flesh to eat?* 

* John vi. 53. 



1 86 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

Rationalists, who admit nothing but what their 
intellects discern, want to see, feel, and touch the 
body of Christ in the Eucharist. In this adorable 
body they look for quantity and extension; and 
not finding these, they not only reject but treat 
the dogma with blasphemous buffoonery. Reason, 
unaided by divine faith, cannot any more compre- 
hend the humble and occult existence of our Lord 
under the sacramental veils than it can the nature 
of His attributes. At the door of the church we 
must leave our philosophy when we come to speak 
on the Blessed Eucharist. The human mind can- 
not understand how the Infinite put on the gar- 
ments of finiteness, or how one substance can exist 
under the modes of another. By divine faith 
alone this most holy and sublime dogma of Catho- 
lic belief is apprehended and adored. 

If it be true, and it is, that the human mind, 
weakened and darkened by the germ of sin im- 
planted in it by the fall of Adam, cannot form an 
adequate idea of the most insignificant creature 
that creeps upon the surface of the earth, how 
much more true is it that it cannot fathom the 
eternal " Word made flesh," who abides in the 
blessed Sacrament! Without the light of faith 
the mind cannot accept this dogma of revealed re- 
ligion, and even with this all it can say is, Credo, 
I believe Eternal Truth who said, Hoc est enim 



The Blessed Eucharist. 1 8 7 

corpus meum ; hie est enim sanguis mens. "For 
this is my body ; for this is my blood." 

As none of the Hebrews but Moses saw the 
Burning Bush, and as none but he saw God on 
Mount Sinai, so none but those who have been 
washed from their sins in the sacraments of bap- 
tism and penance can apprehend God in the 
Blessed Eucharist. The unregenerated, who wor- 
ship sensuality and the mammon of this world, do 
not and cannot apprehend the presence of God 
under the modes of bread and wine on the altars 
of the Catholic Church. No one apprehends the 
Son of God clothed in these poor, humble gar- 
ments but the clean of heart, to whom He com- 
municates Himself by the light of faith, which is 
a sublime gift infused into the soul at the bap- 
tismal font. All we can say is that hoc magnum 
mysterium fidei credi salubriter potest, sed investigari 
salubriter non potest. All we can say is, Domine, 
ad quern ibimus ? Verba vitce ceternce habes. " Lord, 
to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words of 
eternal life." To human understanding it does 
not belong to inquire into this great and most 
profound mystery, but only to accept it and be- 
lieve it through the light of faith. 

In the adorable Eucharistic Sacrament God 
conceals His majesty and splendor from the vision 
of the worthy communicant to add to the value of 



1 88 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

his faith, and to enable him to approach the Holy 
of holies with confidence and love. In this inesti- 
mable Sacrament the angels of heaven see and 
adore unveiled the Divine Word, who inseparably 
united Himself to human nature, while the clean 
of heart see and adore Him clothed in material 
forms, in order to impress their minds, through 
the light of faith, that a union of their intelligence 
with God is effected not only in eternity but in 
time. From the very depths, then, of our hearts 
we should always bless and thank God for this 
most noble and wondrous Gift, the greatest in His 
giving, for there is nothing greater than Himself, 
the blaze of whose glory inebriates the elect and 
is entirely beyond human comprehension. 

Catholics do not any more worship a " bread- 
god " than they do the sun or moon ; they wor- 
ship, adore, pray to, and receive into their souls the 
eternal, simple, all-powerful, self-existing "Word 
made flesh/' who created and upholds the uni- 
verse. Catholics believe and hold that the Holy 
Eucharist really and truly contains the Body and 
Blood, the Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, who 
died on Mount Calvary for the remission of sin. 
It is an article of Catholic faith that the substance 
of bread and wine in the holy Sacrifice of the 
Mass, through the power of God, is wholly 
changed into the substance of the body and blood 



The Blessed Eucharist. 189 

of Christ, and that the sensible qualities or appear- 
ances of the bread and wine remain without a 
subject to rest on. The words of consecration 
are no sooner uttered by the officiating priest 
than the substance of the bread and wine is 
changed into the substance of the body and blood 
of Christ. Although the subjects of the accidents 
of the bread and wine are changed by the force of 
the Sacrament into the body and blood of Christ, 
yet we cannot infer that they are annihilated, for 
the reason that they are changed into the sub- 
stance of the body and blood of Christ. On this 
St. Thomas says : " Substantia panis vel vini, facta 
consecratione, neque sub speciebus sacramenti 
manet, neque alibi; non tamen sequitur quod 
annihilatur ; convertitur enim in corpus Christi ; 
sicut non sequitur si aer, ex quo generatus est 
ignis, non sit ibi vel alibi, quod sit annihilatus." * 
Notwithstanding the fact that the sacramental 
species are only material forms, secundum quid, 
without a subject to rest upon, yet they come 
under the law of corruptibility, just as if united to 
their subjects. This follows from the fact that the 
consecrative act which changed their substance 
into the body and blood of Christ did not destroy 
in them the virtue of matter ; it therefore follows 

* Summae Tbeologicae, qussst. Ixxv. art. iii. 



190 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

that whenever they cease to be a fit covering for 
their subjects, if united to them, they cease also to 
be a covering for the body and blood of our Lord, 
who withdraws His sacramental presence from 
them. 

Here my scientist wanted to know " if the sacra- 
mental species were not nutritive ; and if so, were 
they not still united to their subjects and therefore 
material ?" 

As God wills them to retain the virtue of sub- 
stance after being deprived of their subjects, it 
follows that the act of consecration did not destroy 
in them nutritive functions. If the sacramental 
species are liable to corruption, and they are, they 
are convertible into nutriment. St. Thomas says: 
" Facta consecratione dupliciter dici potest panis 
in hoc sacramento esse; uno modo ipsas species 
panis quae retinent nomen prioris substantias ; alio 
modo potest dici panis ipsum corpus Christi; quod 
est panis mysticum de coelo descendens. Species 
sacramentalis, etsi non sint ea ex quibus corpus 
hominis constat, tamen in ea convertunter. Species 
sacramentalis, quamvis non sint substantia, habent 
tamen virtutem substantias." * 

Again it was queried, " Are not the sacramental 
veils divisible ; if so, is not Christ who abides 

* Summae Theologicae, quaest. lxxvii. art. vi. 



The Blessed Eucharist. 1 9 1 

under them divisible, and therefore finite or lim- 
ited r 

The sacramental veils are divisible because they 
are subject to the laws of matter; but Christ is not 
divisible since He exists under the veil in a spiritual 
and glorified state, as we shall see more fully in 
refuting the next objection. My soul animates and 
gives motion to my body; now, if any non-essential 
member of my body be amputated, will my soul be 
amputated also ? It will not because it is a spiritual 
being which has no extension, and therefore is not 
subject to division. The body of Christ is not di- 
vided unless sacramentally, and then His body and 
blood, soul and divinity are present under each 
division and subdivision of the consecrated Host 

It was further queried, " How could I reconcile 
with reason the belief that an infinite God can 
abide within the narrow limits of a consecrated 
host ? and how could I reconcile with science the 
belief that the body and blood of Christ are 
present in the consecrated host without occupying 
space ? If the body of Christ be material, it must 
occupy space as all bodies do ; but as it does not, 
it follows that Christ is not present in the conse- 
crated host." 

This is the substance of the objection, stripped 
of its gross verbiage, advanced against the pres- 
ence of our Lord in the adorable Sacrament of the 



192 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

Eucharist, before I refute which, it may not be 
amiss to state that if men, who employed months, 
perhaps, in framing objections against the dogmas 
of revealed religion, were to devote their spare 
moments to an honest investigation of them, I 
think that God in His goodness would infuse into 
their souls the gift of divine faith ; but this they 
will not do ; they argue for sake of argument and 
not to arrive at a knowledge of truth. However, 
I will not judge rashly ; perhaps the little informa- 
tion they have received from me may, through 
God's giace, bring them within the " one fold " in 
which no doubt regarding the supernatural is 
entertained. 

Now if all the great intellects that existed since 
creation's dawn were formed into one, this without 
the light of faith could not apprehend the humble 
existence of our blessed Lord under the sacra- 
mental veils. When the eternal Logos of the 
Father took up His abode in the chaste womb of 
Mary, and united Himself to the human soul 
created by Himself, was not the Infinite existing 
within a finite ? 

The Catholic Church teaches that the substance 
of bread and wine, by the power of God, is changed 
into the substance of the body and blood of Christ, 
and therefore that our Lord is whollv and en- 
tirely present under the sacramental veils by force 



The Blessed Eucharist. 193 

of the Sacrament and natural concomitance. The 
body of Christ is present in the Sacrament, not 
after the manner of quantity, but after the manner 
of substance, to which the human soul of Christ 
and His divinity are united by a real concomi- 
tance ; that is, by inseparableness which arises or 
takes place from the hypostatic union of the divine 
and human nature. As the substance of the body 
and blood of our blessed Lord in the Eucharist is 
simple, it does not require space, for the reason 
that it has no physical extension. 

The body of Christ is not present in the Eucha- 
rist in a gross form, or after the manner of a 
human body ; it is present in a glorified and 
spiritualized state. This St. Clement of Alexan- 
dria confirms, who says, " The body of Christ is 
not present in the consecrated Host fleshly \j>ap- 
niKrj\ } but spiritually." 

The institution of the adorable Eucharist, like 
the Incarnation, is one of the stupendous works of 
God. In dignity and depth of mystery it is as far 
superior to His other works as infinity is to finite- 
ness, and therefore is the " compendium of all 
miracles/' The institution of this most holy Sac- 
rament unites the creature with the Creator, man 
with God, and elevates him to a greatness to 
which he could never aspire if Adam had not 
sinned. 



194 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

As the time had now arrived for the institution 
of the adorable Eucharist, the Redeemer, to pre- 
pare the minds of the Jews for its acceptance, 
said : " I am the living bread that came down 
from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he 
shall live for ever ; and the bread that I will give 
is My flesh, for the life of the world. The Jews 
therefore strove among themselves, saying, How 
can- this man give us His flesh to eat ? Then 
Jesus said to them, Amen, amen, I say unto you, 
Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and 
drink His blood, you shall not have life in you. 
He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood 
hath everlasting life ; and I will raise him up on 
the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My 
blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh, 
and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me and I in 
him. As the living Father hath sent Me, and I 
live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, the same 
also shall live by Me. This is'the bread that came 
down from heaven : not as your fathers did eat 
manna, and are dead : he that eateth this bread 
shall live for ever. These things He said, teach- 
ing in the Synagogue in Capernaum. Many, there- 
fore, of His disciples, hearing it, said, This saying is 
hard; and who can hear it? But Jesus, knowing 
in Himself that His disciples murmured at this, 
said to them, Doth this scandalize you ? If, then, 



The Blessed Eucharist. 195 

you shall see the Son of man ascend up where He 
was before ? It is the spirit that quickeneth ; the 
flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I have 
spoken to you are spirit and life. . . . After this 
many of His disciples went back, and walked with 
Him no more. Then Jesus said to the twelve : 
Will you also go away ? And Simon Peter an- 
swered him, Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou 
hast the words of eternal life. And we have be- 
lieved and have known that Thou art the Christ, 
the Son of God." * 

In the foregoing discourse our blessed Lord 
distinctly and clearly told the Jews that He was 
about to leave in their midst, through the institu- 
tion of the Eucharist, His bod}' and blood, soul 
and divinity, which by a worthy reception would 
incorporate them with Him, and impart to them 
eternal life. But they misunderstood the Re- 
deemers language, for they construed it to mean 
the eating of His bod)', which should shortly be 
immolated on the cross for man's redemption; and 
murmuring among themselves, said, " How can this 
man give us His flesh to eat ? And they walked with 
Him 7io more." Christ did not call back His disci- 
ples ; He let them go, and said, " Unless you eat the 
flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall 

* John vi. 51-70. 



196 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

not have life in you." Then, through an impulse of 
compassion for their weakness of intellect and 
absence of faith, He tells them " it is the spirit that 
quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing!' The words 
He spoke to them were spirit and life. Here he 
confesses His divinity and humanity by predicat- 
ing the terms flesh and spirit of Himself, and by 
distinguishing the Spirit or Logos from the flesh, 
with a view that they might believe in His divin- 
ity and accept His language in a spiritual and not 
in a carnal sense. To confirm them in this, and to 
impress on their minds that the flesh He was 
about to give them to eat was spiritual nourish- 
ment, supercelestial food, He says, " The words I 
have spoken to you are spirit and life/' He further 
says, "Doth this scandalize you? If, then, you shall 
see the So7t of man ascend up where He was before f" 
If you think that My flesh will not infuse life into 
you, how shall it ascend to My Father in heaven ? 
But it will ascend, because vivified by My spirit, 
which will be in the flesh that Twill give you to eat. 
This is the idea contained in the language of 
Christ to the Jews, and this is the view entertained 
by St. Augustin on the subject, who says, " What, 
then, means what He adds, ' it is the spirit that 
quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth nothing'? Let us say 
to him, O Lord, good Master, how does the flesh 
profit nothing, when Thou has said, ' Except a man eat 



The Blessed E tic harts t. 197 

My flesh, and drink My blood, he shall not have life in 
him ' ? Does, then, life profit nothing? And where- 
fore are we what we are, but that we may have life 
eternal, which Thou dost promise with Thy flesh ? 
What, then, is this, ' the flesh profit eth nothing'? It 
profiteth nothing but in the sense in which they 
understood it ; for they understood of the flesh as 
it is torn to pieces in a carcass, or is sold in the 
market, not as it is animated by the spirit. " (Car- 
item quippe sic intellexerunt, quomodo in cadavre dila- 
niatur aut in macello [shambles] venditur ; non quo- 
modo spiritu vegitatur.) " The expression, the flesh 
profiteth nothing, is used like this, Knowledge puff- 
eth up. Are we, then, to hate knowledge ? God 
forbid. Then what means Knowledge puffeth up ? 
Knowledge alone without charity puffeth up. To 
knowledge, therefore, unite charity, and knowl- 
edge will be profitable. . . . So, also, here: the 
flesh profiteth nothing, but it is the flesh alone ; let 
the spirit be united to the flesh, as charity to 
knowledge, and it profiteth much." * 

At length the great day of unleavened bread 
dawned on which the typical Passover was to be 
literally fulfilled, and a more glorious day never 
before saluted the earth with gladsome smiles. Its 
awful grandeur the human mind cannot conceive, 

* T. iii. tr. xxvii. in Evan. Joan. n. 5, col. 1990. 



198 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

because upon its close a wonder of wonders, a mir- 
acle of miracles was to be wrought by Almighty 
Power. On the evening of that day the Lord of 
heaven, after having supped with His Apostles, 
opened to them a paradise of unspeakable delights 
by changing the substance of bread and wine into 
the substance of His body and blood. "And 
whilst they were at supper Jesus took bread and 
blessed and broke and gave to His disciples, and 
said, Take ye and eat ; this is My body. And tak- 
ing the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them, 
saying, Drink ye all of this ; for this is My blood 
of the New Testament, which shall be shed for 
many unto the remission of sins."* The words of 
the institution, as recorded by St. Luke, are, 
" And taking bread He gave thanks, and broke and 
gave to them, saying, This is My body which is 
given for you. Do you this for a commemoration 
of Me. In like manner the chalice also, after He 
had supped, saying, This is the chalice of the New 
Testament in My blood, which shall be shed for 
you." f 

The promise that our Lord made, as recorded 
in the sixth chapter and fifty-second verse of St. 
John, is now fulfilled. The shadows and types of 
the Old Law are no more, for they are dissipated 
by the verity of the New. At this feast of the 

* Matt. xxvi. 26-28. f Luke xxii. 19, 20. 



The Blessed Eucharist. 1 99 

Jewish Passover our blessed Lord, by virtue of 
His power, as God, changed the substance of 
bread and wine into the substance of His body 
and blood, and gave to His disciples, with a com- 
mand that they do the same in commemoration of 
Him. At this feast Jesus Christ, by a stupendous 
miracle, makes Himself the convivator and the 
feast. He eats with His disciples, and is Himself 
eaten by them. At this banquet He gave Himself 
a spiritual existence under sacramental forms, and 
at the same time, under the appearance of death, 
mystically offered Himself up to His heavenly 
Father for the remission of sin. 

If any one be scandalized at the poor garb the 
Son of God assumed in the Eucharist; if any 
deem this manner of existence beneath the dignity 
of the Logos of the Father, let Him look at Him 
clothed in the rags of humanity in the crib in 
Bethlehem ; let him enter into the hall of the high- 
priest and see uncreated Truth, " a man of sor- 
rows/' spat upon, slapped in the face, blindfolded, 
mocked, and crowned with thorns ; let him ascend 
Mount Calvary with the Redeemer, loaded with 
a heavy cross, the sins of an apostate world, nailed 
to it, and then compare one state of existence w T ith 
the other. The state chosen by our Lord in the 
crib in Bethlehem was as poor as the one chosen 
by Him under the veils of bread and wine. 



200 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

If any one doubt the power of the Word " made 
flesh" to change the substance of bread and wine 
into the substance of His body and blood, let him 
ponder on the power of His creative act which 
called chaotic matter into being, brought light 
from it, formed it into luminous and non-luminous 
bodies, adjusted them in space, and made them 
obey the law of motion; let him ponder on that 
same infinite power which, because of sin, de- 
stroyed on earth every thing in which was the 
breath of life, except those in the ark with Noe ; 
which consumed Sodom with fire from heaven ; 
slew the first-born among the Egyptians ; changed 
the rod of Moses into a serpent; changed water 
into blood ; brought manna from heaven, water 
from a rock ; caused the walls of Jericho to fall, and 
the sun to stand still. Could not the Word of 
God, the Word-God, who wrought these awful 
miracles, who changed water into wine at the 
marriage-feast of Cana, change the substance of 
bread and wine into the substance of His body and 
blood? St. Paul answers affirmatively, who says, 
" The chalice of benediction which we bless, is it 
not the communion of the blood of Christ? and the 
bread which we break, is it not the partaking of 
the body of the Lord? For we, being many, are 
one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread. 
. . . You cannot drink the chalice of the Lord and 



The Blessed Eucharist. 201 

the chalice of devils." * Here St. Paul affirms 
that the chalice of benediction, that is, the contents 
of the chalice, after being consecrated, is the com- 
munion of the blood of Christ, is the same blood 
which flowed from His pierced side, and that the 
bread, after being consecrated, is that same body 
which hung upon the cross. By the term com- 
munion he teaches the Corinthians that they are 
not only united to Christ by faith, but also by a 
worthy reception of Him in the Eucharist, and 
therefore they must not partake of food offered 
by the pagans to their idols. To impress still 
more upon their minds that the substance of bread 
and wine, by the power of God, is changed into the 
substance of the body and blood of Christ, he says, 
" For I have received of the Lord that which also 
I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same 
night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and 
giving thanks, broke, and said, This is My body, 
which shall be delivered for you : this do for the 
commemoration of Me. In like manner also the 
chalice after He had supped, saying, This chalice 
is the New Testament in My blood : this do ye, as 
often as you shall drink, for the commemoration 
of Me. For as often as you shall eat this bread, 
and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of 

* 1 Corinth, x. 16-20. 



202 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

the Lord until He come. Therefore whosoever 
shall eat this bread, or drink \_*'H7tivij] the chalice 
of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body 
and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove 
himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink 
of the chalice. For he that eateth and drinketh 
unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to him- 
self, not discerning the body of the Lord."* 
Here, St. Paul, in order to correct abuses that ap- 
peared in the religious meetings of the Corinthians, 
reminds them that the Son of God existed in the 
Eucharist which some of them received un- 
worthily, owing to an absence of due prepara- 
tion, and therefore entailed damnation on their 
souls. After giving them the history of the insti- 
tution, which he received by divine revelation, he 
tells them they must prove themselves — that is, 
they must be certain they are in a state of grace — 
before they partake of this supercelestial food, in 
order to avoid the crime of sacrilege. Now, if the 
body and blood of our Lord were not present in 
the Eucharist, how could the unworthy communi- 
cant merit eternal punishment? If God were not 
under the sacramental veils, how could the com- 
munion be unworthy ? Is it compatible with the 
justice of a God who is infinite perfection, love, 

* Ubi sup. xi. 23-29. 



The Blessed Eucharist. 203 

mercy, and goodness to condemn to eternal tor- 
ments His children for eating a morsel of bread 
that was only a sign or figure of His body ? Why 
was not this punishment incorporated with the 
eating unworthily of the manna and the Paschal 
Lamb? Because they were only typical of the 
supercelestial manna and Lamb of God who 
abides in the Eucharistic Sacrifice and Sacrament. 

St. Ignatius, who, as we have seen, flourished 
in the second century, says, " I have no taste for 
corruptible food, nor for the pleasures of this life. 
I wish for God's bread, heavenly bread, bread of 
life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of 
God. ... I wish for God's draught, His blood, 
which is love [Kai noixa Qeoi deXco to aijua 
avrov S'eSiv aya-raj], without corruption and 
life evermore. ... Be careful therefore to use 
one Eucharist, for there is but one flesh of our 
Lord Jesus Christ ; one cup for the uniting of His 
blood ; and one altar.' ' * 

St. Cyril of Jerusalem says : " He Himself, there- 
fore, having declared, and said concerning the 
bread, This is My body, who shall dare to doubt 
henceforward? And He Himself having settled, 
and said, This is My blood, who shall ever doubt, 
saying, This is not His blood ? He once, at Cana 
of Galilee, turned \MeTa/3efi\r?K£r~] water into 

* Ad Rom. n. 7, et ad Smyrn. n. 7, 8. 



204 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

wine, — which is akin to blood, — and is He unde- 
serving of belief when He turned wine into blood ? 
. . . Wherefore, with the fullest assurance, let us 
partake of Chrises body and blood ; for in the 
type [Ev rvrtGo] of bread is given to thee the body, 
and in the type of wine is given to thee the blood, 
in order that, having partaken of Christ's body 
and blood, thou mightest become one in body and 
one in blood with Him. For thus also do we be- 
come Christ-bearers, His body and blood being 
diffused through our members; thus do we be- 
come, according to the blessed Peter, partakers of 
the divine nature (2 Peter i. 4). Christ, on one 
occasion, discoursing with the Jews, said, Unless 
you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you shall not 
have life in you. They, not having received His 
words spiritually, were scandalized, and went back, 
fancying that he was inviting them to eat flesh.* 
. . . Wherefore do not contemplate the bread and 
the wine as bare elements, for they are, according 
to the Lord's declaration, Christ's body and blood ; 
for even though sense suggests this to thee, yet let 
the faith stablish thee. Judge not the thing from 
the taste, but from faith be fully assured, without 
misgiving, that thou hast been vouchsafed Christ's 
body and blood." f 

* Erti Sapxocpayiav. Sarcophagy. 
f Catech. Mystag. v. pp. 331-2. 



The Blessed Eucharist. 205 

St. Ambrose says : " Dost thou wish to eat and 
drink? Come unto the feast of wisdom, who in- 
vites all with a loud voice, saying, Come, eat My 
bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for 
you. Fear not lest, in the feast of the Church, 
there be wanting either grateful perfumes, or 
sweetmeats, or varied drinks, or noble guests, or 
suitable garments. What more noble than Christ, 
who, in the banquet of the Church, is both minister 
and ministered ? * Recline close by the side of this 
guest, and join thyself to God/'f In another 
place the same Father says : " Christ is a rich 
treasure ; His is the bread of fatness, and truly 
of fatness, since he who shall eat thereof cannot 
hunger. This bread He gave to the Apostles to 
be distributed to the multitude of believers; and 
at this day He gives it to us, which himself the 
priest daily consecrates with His own words4 
Therefore has this bread become the food of saints. 
. . . He receives who proveth himself; and he that 
receives shall not die the death of the sinner, for 
this bread is the remission of sin."§ 

* "Quid Christo nobilius, qui in convivio ecclesiae et ministrat 
et ministratur." 

\ T. i. De Cain et Abele, 1. i. c. 5, n. 19, p. 192. 

X "Quern ipse quotidie sacerdos consecrat suis verbis." 

§ " Panis hie remissio peccatorum est." (T. i. De Bened. Patr. 
c. ix. n. 38, p. 524. 



2o6 A Catholic Priest and Scientists, 

St. Chrysostom, in his comments on the words 
With desire have I desired to eat this passover, says : 
" Wherefore let us on every occasion obey God, 
and gainsay nothing, even though what is said 
seems contrary to reason and sight ; but let His 
word be more powerful than both, than reason- 
ing and sight. Even so let us act in the matter of 
the mysteries, not looking merely on the things 
laid out, but holding fast His words. For His 
word is incapable of being deceived, but our 
senses are very easily deceived. Wherefore, since 
the Word of God says, This is My body, let us both 
be persuaded and believe, and look on it with the 
eyes of understanding. For Christ has delivered 
to us nothing to be 'perceived by the senses/ but 
everything to be ' apprehended by the understand- 
ing ' in things perceptible by the senses. For so 
also in baptism, by means of a thing that is per- 
ceptible to the senses, there takes place that gift 
of the water, generation, yea, regeneration. For 
wert thou indeed incorporeal, He would have 
delivered to thee those same incorporeal gifts 
without covering [TvpLva] ; but since the soul is 
united to the body, He delivered to thee in things 
perceptible to the senses the things to be appre- 
hended by the understanding. How many nowa- 
days say, Would that we could look upon His form, His 
figure, His raiment, His shoes ! Lo ! thou seest 



The Blessed Eucharist. 207 

Him, touchest Him, eatest Him. . . . Wherefore we 
must watch at all times ; yea, for no slight punish- 
ment lies on those who receive unworthily. Think 
how indignant thou art against him that betrayed 
and those who crucified Him. See to it, then, lest 
thou also .become guilty of the body and blood of 
Christ. . . . Wherefore, then, than what ought 
not he be purer who enjoys so great a sacrifice? 
Purer than any solar ray should that hand be that 
divides the flesh [Tavrtjv diarepLvov^av'], that 
mouth that is filled with spiritual fire, that tongue 
that is reddened with the most awful blood ! . . . 
What shepherd feeds his sheep with his own 
body? There are mothers who, after confine- 
ment, consign their children to other nurses ; but 
He suffered not this: He Himself feeds us with 
His own blood."* 

* T. vii. Horn. 82 in Matt. n. i. 4-6, pp. 883, 884. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

IS THERE A PURGATORY OR MIDDLE STATE? 

Before I answer this question I will state that 
my disputants took flight, on the wings of modern 
science, through all the cosmical bodies poised in 
immeasurable space, in search of Purgatory; and 
not finding it, concluded that its existence " was 
purely mythical, and that its presumed existence 
was a consequence of Romish craftiness to de- 
grade human reason. " If these men applied their 
powers of abstraction and induction to an explana- 
tion of the existence, the nature and substance 
of a mosquito, they would gain more for modern 
science by a solution of this enigmatic problem 
than by formulating false charges against the 
Catholic Church. The Church had no more to 
do with originating belief in the existence of a 
middle state than she had to do in the creation 
of chaotic matter. In the existence of Purgatory 
she believes on the authority of uncreated Truth, 
as she does every other dogma of her faith. 

As the Church of God has terrestrial and super- 



Is there a Purgatory ? 209 

mundane being, her members, who are called from 
their natural to their supernatural or ultimate 
state, must obey the summons, because it is issued 
by Him who gave life, and therefore has a right 
to take it away. This taking away of human life 
is nothing more than a separation of man's com- 
ponents, or a return of them to the sources out of 
which they were formed and created. The body 
returns to earth from which it was formed, and 
the soul to its Maker who created it. We have 
seen that man, inasmuch as he is an animal, has a 
nature in common with the visible world, and in- 
asmuch as he is a rational being he has a nature 
in common with the invisible world. His ulti- 
mate end, then, is the possession of the spiritual 
and not of the material world. In his superna- 
tural and redeemed state he was destined to enjoy 
the society of created spiritual beings higher in 
intelligence than himself, and the beatific vision of 
his Creator. But as he has freedom of will he can 
frustrate the end of his being by committing sin 
unto death, and thereby entail on himself eternal 
punishment. 

God, who is a limitless ocean of divine love, 
goodness, and mercy, imparted by His grace to 
the members of Christ's mystic body the power 
of loving and serving Him, which, if they accept 
with holy love and cause it to fructify, will shield 



210 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

them from the commission of trivial sins and intro- 
duce them to a new and spiritual form of existence 
indescribably holy. If they accept it with less in- 
tensity and love than they should, so that they 
commit sin unto death, but remitted as to its 
eternal guilt by the efficacy of the sacrament of 
penance, it will lead them to a state of existence 
in which there will be suffering until the divine 
justice is satisfied. If they do not accept it at all, 
and commit sin unto death without repentance, it 
will lead them to a state of being in which there 
will be eternal suffering inconceivably intense. 
These three states — the present, the middle, and 
ultimate, or the militant, the suffering, and tri- 
umphant — constitute the existence of the Church 
of God in the visible and invisible worlds. 

It is of faith that there is a Purgatory, because 
taught by the Church, by the Scriptures, the 
Fathers, and decreed by various Councils. The 
Church, guided by the Eternal Word, teaches that 
there is a middle state where souls who have de- 
parted this life with the remission of their sins as 
to eternal punishment, but liable to some temporal 
punishment yet due, are purged and purified be- 
fore they are admitted to the enjoyment of God's 
society. The Church further teaches that such 
souls while in an ulterior state of purification, 
being living members of Christ, are relieved by 



Is there a Purgatory ? 211 

the prayers and suffrages of their fellow-members 
on earth. But where this ulterior state of purga- 
tion may be, of what nature the pains may be, 
and how long souls may be detained therein, do 
not pertain to Catholic faith. 

God is so infinitely pure that His holiness de- 
mands that nothing impure or defiled by sin can 
enter into His kingdom. But as souls, while jour- 
neying through time to eternity, commit sin unto 
death that deserves eternal punishment, which was 
remitted by the efficacy of the sacrament of pen- 
ance, yet there is a temporal punishment due to 
the sinful act which must be atoned for here or 
hereafter, before such souls are allowed entrance 
into the heavenly Jerusalem. That sin unto death, 
remitted as to eternal punishment, has a temporal 
punishment attached to it we learn from the Holy 
Scriptures, which tell us that our first parents, be- 
cause of their sin of disobedience, were stripped 
of original justice, driven out of paradise, afflicted 
with miseries of sundry kinds, and subjected to 
death. Here we see that although the sin was 
forgiven, yet there was a temporal punishment 
incorporated in the act of rebellion which they 
had to undergo, before the trace left on their souls 
was effaced. The Hebrews who murmured against 
Moses and Aaron in the desert, by way of a tem- 
poral punishment, were not allowed to enter into 



212 A Catholic Priest and Scientists, 

the promised land.* Moses himself was signally 
punished for doubting the power of God to cause 
water to flow from a rock.f King David had no 
sooner sinned against God and Urias, his neigh- 
bor, than the prophet Nathan reproved him, who 
said, " Thus said the Lord God : Behold, I will 
raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, 
and I will take thy wives before thine eyes and 
give them to thy neighbor. . . . And David said 
to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And 
Nathan said to David, The Lord hath taken away 
thy sin " — that is, the sin was remitted as to eternal 
punishment ; " thou shalt not die " — that is, thou 
shait not die eternally. " Nevertheless, because 
thou hast given occasion to the enemies of the 
Lord to blaspheme, for this thing the child that is 
born of thee shall die." % 

Suppose a person dies whose heart is but 
slightly touched by the love of God, whose 
mortal sins were many but remitted, /whose venial 
sins were without number: will the soul of this 
person pass into the regions of eternal bliss ? It 
will not, because " there shall not enter into hea- 
ven anything defiled."! To what state, then, will 
this soul be transferred ? To that of suffering 

* See Numbers xiv. f Ubi sup. xx. 

% 2 Kings xii. § Rev. xxi. 27. 



Is there a Purgatory ? 213 

which will purify it and fit it for the society of 
God. This the Redeemer confirms where He 
says, " Make an agreement with thy adversary 
quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him ; lest, 
perhaps, the adversary deliver thee to the judge, 
and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou 
be cast into prison. Amen, I say to thee, thou 
shalt not go out from thence till thou pay the last 
farthing/' * 

Saints Hilary, Ambrose, and Jerome interpret 
the term adversary " to mean one whom we have 
injured, who has a case against us before God." 
It also means eternal justice, to which we are in- 
debted on account of our venial sins, and the tem- 
poral punishment due to our mortal sins remitted 
through the sacrament of penance. The way is 
the present life, or our journey through time to 
eternity. The judge is the Redeemer, who will 
pass sentence on all our words and actions. 
The prison is Purgatory ; it may also mean hell, in 
which the wicked are imprisoned, out of which 
they will never be released, because of their in- 
ability to pay the last farthing or to cancel the 
debt of mortal sin. The keeper is either a good or 
bad spirit who guards the outlet of Purgatory or 
hell. Out of the former prison there is redemp- 

* Matt. v. 25, 26. 



214 ^ Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

tion when the justice of God is satisfied ; out of 
the latter there is no redemption, because in it sin 
is not forgiven. 

St. Paul lays down the doctrine of a middle 
state in language the most clear, where he says : 
" For no one can lay another foundation but that 
which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now if any 
man build upon this foundation gold, silver, pre- 
cious stones, wood, hay, stubble ; every man's 
work shall be made manifest: for the day of the 
Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed 
by fire ; and the fire shall try every man's work of 
what sort it is. If any man's work abide which 
he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward ; 
if any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss : but he 
himself shall be saved ; yet so as by fire"* 

The gold, silver, and precious stones we build 
on the foundation, Christ, are those religious 
works we perform in a state of grace, through the 
love of God and our neighbor, and those works 
we perform through human respect are wood, 
hay, straw, and stubble. It sometimes happens, 
owing to the weakness of human nature, that our 
religious works are highly tinctured with self-love, 
which lessens their value before God, who " sits 
and refines, and shall purify the sons of Levi." 

* I Cor. iii. 11-15. 



Is there a Purgatory ? 215 

If we carry with us to the judgment-seat of God 
more wood, hay, and stubble than gold, silver, 
and precious stones, we shall be transferred to a 
state suited to the defective religious life of our 
souls, out of which we will come purified from 
the stains of sins remitted before death, as to eternal 
punishment. 

Now, since nothing impure can enter the king- 
dom of heaven, and since the fire of hell has no 
saving properties, it follows that there is a middle 
state in which souls are washed from the stains of 
venial or light sins. To deny that there is such a 
state is to deny that God is infinitely just, who 
cannot condemn a soul that owes only a farthing 
to the same term of imprisonment with one that 
owes ten thousand talents. It follows, therefore, 
that since it is not in accord with the justice of 
God to assert that falsehood when innocent, or the 
taking of the name of God in vain, is as severely 
punished in the next life as is adultery, wilful 
murder, or heres) 7 , there must be a middle state of 
punishment in which souls suffer for a time before 
being admitted to the enjoyment of eternal bliss. 
That there is such a state our Lord Himself asserts 
where He says, " Therefore I say to you, Every 
sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men ; but the 
blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 
And whosoever shall speak a word against the 



2 1 6 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

Son of man, it shall be forgiven him ; but he that 
shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be 
forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world 
to come"* From this it is clear that sins are for- 
given in the next world; but as sin is not admitted 
into heaven, and as it is not forgiven in hell, it 
follows, therefore, from the testimony of uncreated 
Truth, that there is a middle state in which sins 
are forgiven. The penitent thief said, " Lord, re- 
member me when Thou shalt come into Thy king- 
dom. And Jesus said to him, Amen, I say to thee, 
This day thou shalt be with Me in paradise!' f That 
our Lord did not mean heaven by the term para- 
dise is evident from what He said to Mary Mag- 
dalene, to whom He appeared after His resurrec- 
tion: "Do not touch Me, for I have not yet 
ascended to My Father." % St. Peter says, " Christ 
also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust, 
that He might offer us to God, being put to death, 
indeed, in the flesh, but brought to life by the 
Spirit; in which also He came and preached to those 
spirits who were in prison "§ These words clearly 
demonstrate that then there was a prison in which 
the souls of the faithful were imprisoned to whom 
Christ preached deliverance. 

That the Catholic Church did not originate 

* Matt. xii. 31, 32. f Luke xxiii. 43, 44. 

% John xx. 17. § 1 Peter Hi. 18, 19. 



Is there a Purgatory ? 217 

belief in the existence of a middle state is evident 
from the second book of Machabees, which existed 
before the Church was founded, and which says, 
" And on the following day Judas came with his 
company to take the bodies of them that were 
slain and bury them with their kinsmen in the sep- 
ulchres of their fathers. And they found under 
the coats of the slain some of the donaries of the 
idols of Jamnia, which the law forbiddeth to the 
Jews; so that all plainly saw that for this cause 
they were slain. . . . And making a gathering, he 
sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusa- 
lem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the 
dead, ... It is, therefore, a holy and wholesome 
thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed 
from their sins." * From this passage it will be 
seen that the Jews, long before our Lord ap- 
peared on this earth, and before the Church was 
established, believed in the existence of a middle 
state. Those who do not accept the first two 
books of Machabees as an integral part of the Old 
Testament must accept them as history, and there- 
fore admit of Purgatory. 

Origen, commenting on the fifth chapter, twenty- 
fifth and twenty-sixth verses of St. Matthew, says: 
" If I be a debtor, the exactor will cast me into 

* 2 Mach, xii. 39-46. 



2 1 8 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

prison, in the order named above ; for the adversary 
will lead me to the prince, the prince to the judge, 
and the judge will deliver me to the exactor, and 
the exactor will cast me into prison. What is the 
law of this prison ? I go not thence until I have 
paid every debt. . . . Thou hast not been found 
worthy to hear, Thy sins are forgiven thee, but thou 
art cast into prison, and there thou art assailed for 
payment through pains and punishment, and thou 
shalt not go thence till thou pay est the last farthing. 
. . . Wherefore let us strive to be freed from the 
adversary whilst we are in the way, and be united to 
the Lord Jesus." * 

St. Augustin says : " Those build on the founda- 
tion, Christ, gold, silver, and precious stones who 
observe the commandments and evangelical coun- 
cils, whereas those build on it wood, hay, and 
stubble who observe the commandments but not 
the evangelical councils."f 

From this we see that those who observe the 
commandments and evangelical councils will suf- 
fer no loss by fire, while those who keep the com- 
mandments and do not observe the evangelical 
councils shall suffer loss, but yet shall be saved so 
as by fire. 

St. Chrysostom says, " It was not without reason 

* Tom. iii. Horn. xxv. p. 975. f Tom. iv. col. 215. 



Is there a Purgatory ? 219 

ordained by the Apostles that the deceased should 
be remembered in the awful mysteries [the holy 
Sacrifice of the Mass], because they well knew 
they [the dead] would receive great help from 
it"* 

The Council of Trent issued the following de- 
cree concerning the existence of a middle state: 

" Whereas the Catholic Church, instructed by 
the Holy Spirit, has, from the sacred writings and 
the ancient traditions of the Fathers, taught in the 
sacred councils, and very recently declared in this 
oecumenical synod, that there is a purgatory, and 
that the souls therein detained are helped by the 
suffrages of the faithful, but principally by the ac- 
ceptable sacrifice of the altar; the holy synod 
commands the bishops that they carefully en- 
deavor that the sound doctrine concerning pur- 
gatory delivered by the holy Fathers and sacred 
councils he held, believed by, and taught to the 
faithful of Christ, and be everywhere preached." 

u Cum Catholica Ecclesia, Spiritu Sancto edocta, 
ex sacris litteris, et antiqua Patrum traditione, in 
sacris conciliis, et novissime in hac oecumenica 
synodo docuerit, purgatorium esse ; animas quae ibi 
detentas fidelium suffragiis, potissimum vero ac- 
ceptabili altaris sacrificio juvari ; praecepit sancta 

* In cap. i. Philip. Horn. iii. See St. Ambrose in Ps. 118. 



220 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

synodus episcopis, ut sanam de purgatorio doc- 
trinam, a Sanctis patribus, et sacris conciliis tradi- 
tam, a Christi fidelibus credi, teneri, doceri, et 
ubique prsedicare, diligenter studeant." * 

That " the Catholic Church," through the belief 
of her children in the existence of a middle state, 
"gets her hand into their pockets and abstracts 
therefrom their money, " is a statement that is 
utterly false. The vile slander has no existence 
outside the minds of those who propagated it. 
Smce the days of Julian the Apostate, heretics and 
infidels have not ceased to misrepresent and ridi- 
cule the dogmas of revealed religion; and this 
they do with a persistency peculiar to themselves. 
To impress on their minds the vapidity of their 
charges, the absurdity of their false assertions, and 
their sin against truth, is impossible because of 
their utter ignorance of eternal truth and revealed 
religion. 

It is known to all Catholics that the holy Sacri- 
fice of the Mass, throughout the world, is daily 
offered to God to abridge the sufferings of the 
souls in a middle state, and that the priests who 
offer up to the Almighty this most awful and ac- 
ceptable sacrifice, receive a stipend, not as an 
equivalent for the holy act, but to enable them to 

* Concil Trid. sess. xxv. Decret. de purgator. 



Is there a Pttrgatory ? 221 

live; for "he that serves the altar shall live by 
it" 

There is not a practical Catholic on earth who 
will testify to the statement that " priests, through 
motives of gain, force the members of their con- 
gregations to have masses said for the repose of 
the souls of their deceased friends. " The force 
used is that of charity, elicited by an act of faith, 
which compassionates the helpless state of the 
members of the Church suffering. The faithful 
are instructed to help their friends in the other 
world by the application of the holy Sacrifice of 
the Mass, by prayers, alms-deeds, and other meri- 
torious works, offered to God for their eternal 
felicity. 



CHAPTER IX. 

DID THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ORGANIZE HER 
PRIESTHOOD? DID SHE COMMISSION THEM TO 
PREACH THE GOSPEL? DOES SHE DEMAND OF 
SOCIETY TO RECEIVE THEM AS DEMIGODS? 
ARE THEY IN THEIR OFFICIAL CAPACITY NO 
BETTER THAN LAYMEN? ARE THEY INFERIOR 
TO THE LAITY IN EDUCATION AND MORALITY? 

Tot infideles quot de ecclesia et sacerdotibus ejus 
sententiee false?. This has proved true from the 
day on which the Jews charged the Redeemer 
before Pilate with " stirring up the people." * 
Infidelity looks upon the priest with the same 
hatred that the Jews looked upon Christ. In 
every priest it sees a Jesuit, and Jesuits are to be 
hated because they stir up the people ; they are to 
be hated because they are the latent enemies of 
the state. If infidelity were to study the Catholic 
priest, his feelings, principles, and expectations, it 
would arrive at different conclusions, but this it 
will not do. It is a strange phenomenon that ed- 

*Luke xxiii. 5. 



The Hierarchy. 223 

ucated men fear and hate the priest, entirely igno- 
rant of his objects. But on close reflection this 
phenomenon is not so strange, because it is the 
earthly inheritance of the priest. When our 
blessed Lord descended from the cross on which, 
suspended between heaven and earth, He consum- 
mated man's redemption, He bequeathed the cross 
with its implements of torture to His priests. 
Thenceforth it was to be their earthly crown, their 
glory and inheritance ; thenceforth persecution, 
insult, disrespect, evangelical poverty, abstinence, 
and contact with human animals, rendered fero- 
cious by the absence of practical faith and educa- 
tion, were the mysterious characters imprinted on 
the order of the priesthood by the Redeemer, who 
must drink of His embittered cup. Before the 
priest can find shelter in the wounds of his divine 
Master from the fierce persecution of this world, 
he must be crucified in body and soul ; his physi- 
cal nature must be subdued, before he can hold 
mystic communion with an unseen world and 
God. 

We have seen in the sixth chapter of this work 
that Almighty God founded His Church on an 
indefectible Rock ; that He organized her hier- 
archy, and constituted Peter — the Rock — chief, 
whom He endowed with infallibility ; that this 
infallible head of the Church, after our Lord as- 



224 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

cended from Mount Olivet to His heavenly, Fath- 
er, converted by one discourse, delivered at Jeru- 
salem, five thousand persons, and that Paul, after 
being converted, received his mission to pagan 
nations from the Prince of the Apostles. The pri- 
mary elements of the hierarchy which existed in 
the blessed Apostles, who were scattered over the 
world, sowing the seeds of Christianity, were poor 
indeed. It could not be otherwise, and therefore 
required time to mould and give these definite 
form, which they received and held for almost 
nineteen centuries. As the establishment of the 
hierarchy, which is composed of the Pope, bish- 
ops, priests, and deacons, is God's work and crea- 
tion, it is silly and nonsensical to assert that " the 
Catholic Church organized her priesthood for 
deceptive purposes, who, in many respects, are in- 
ferior to the laity." 

Now I have a supernatural certitude that an 
approved priest of the Catholic Church is as far 
superior to laymen in every walk of life as light is 
to darkness. Why? Because of the " imposition 
of hands," or the rite of ordination, through the 
exercise of which he brings down from heaven 
the eternal Son of God to abide on the altar of the 
Church under the sacramental veils of bread and 
wine, and to declare, in the name and by the 
power of God, the sins unto death of the contrite 



The Hierarchy, 225 

sinner remitted as to eternal punishment. As the 
uncreated Word spangled the heavens with gems 
that reflect His glory, so too did He His Church. 
These, before He ascended from Mount Olivet, 
He selected, polished, and set in the crown of the 
Church. Non vos me elegistis, sed ego elegi vos> et 
posui vos, tit eatis, et fructum efferatis, et fructus ves- 
ter manectt* On these He conferred spiritual 
power, which He never conferred on angels, with 
a promise that they would obtain from His Father 
whatever they would ask in His name. Ut quod- 
cnnque petieritis Patrem in nomine meo, det vobis.\ It 
is this power and its exercise that feeds, trims, and 
keeps burning in the House of God the lamp of 
practical faith, that opens heaven to the elect, that 
constitutes the priest the minister of God, and ele- 
vates him above every human being outside his 
order; it is this power that endears the priest to 
the faithful, the saints, the angels, and the Holy 
Ghost, who calls him his christ ; it is this power 
that makes atheists, infidels, liberal Catholics, and 
evil spirits hate him. Through the exercise of 
this awful power the Catholic priest offers to God, 
for the living and the dead, the holy and unbloody 
Sacrifice of Mount Calvary, agreeable to the com- 
mand the Apostles received from Christ, "This do 

* John xv. 16. f Ubi sup. 



226 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

for a commemoration of Me." * To the priest our 
Lord said, " He that heareth you heareth Me ; and 
he that despiseth you despiseth Me ; and he that 
despiseth Me despiseth Him that sent Me."f 
Christ said to the disciples who returned to Him 
replete with joy, because in His name they cast 
out devils, " Behold, I have given you power to 
tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all 
power of the enemy. But rejoice not in this, that 
the spirits are subject to you ; but rejoice in this, 
that your names are written in heaven/' % St. 
Paul says, " Let the priests who rule well be 
worthy of double honor, especially those who la- 
bor in the word and doctrine. ,, § St. Ignatius, 
whom I have quoted in another place, says, " The 
bishops fill the place of Jesus Christ, the priests 
represent the Apostles, while the deacons are 
charged with the service of the altar." || St. 
Ephrem, whom I have also quoted, speaking on 
the sublime dignity of the priesthood, says: " Oh, 
the incredible miracle, the ineffable power, the 
tremendous mystery of the priesthood ! It as- 
cends without hindrance into the heaven of heav- 
ens ; it gloriously takes its stand in the midst of 
incorporeal spirits. ... It becomes the familiar 



*Luke xxii. 19. f Ubi sup. x. 16. % Ubi sup. 19, 20. 

§ 1 Tim. v. 17. || Ep. ad Magnes. n. 6. 



The Hierarchy. 227 

of the Lord of angels, the creator and giver of 
light. . . . What language shall I use to describe 
the dignity of the priesthood, which transcends 
both thought and language? ... It flies aloft 
from earth to heaven, bearing unto God our peti- 
tions, and intercedes with Him on behalf of His 
servants. . . . The priesthood soars from earth to 
heaven, gazes on Him who is invisible, and, pros- 
trate, prays for the servants to their Master ; im- 
plores pardon and mercy of a merciful King, that 
the Holy Ghost at the same time may descend and 
sanctify the gifts that are open to view on the 
altar ; and when the fearful mysteries of complete 
immortality have been offered by means of the 
presiding [officiating] priest, who makes interces- 
sion for all, then souls draw nigh [receive holy 
communion], and receive purification from their 
stains by means of the tremendous mysteries. . . . 
Oh, the ineffable power that has vouchsafed to 
dwell within us by the imposition of hands !"* 

To refute the vile charge that "the Church or- 
ganized her priesthood for deceptive purposes," it 
is necessary to take a cursory view of the priestly 
candidate during the time he is preparing himself 
for holy orders. The first essential in him is a 
vocation. He must be called as Aaron was, as the 

*Tom. iii. De Sacerdotio, pp. 1-3. 



228 , A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

Apostles were, otherwise he would not enter by 
the door into the sheepfold. At an early age this 
divine call develops itself. There is a something 
that is attractive and pleasing acting upon his 
mind, which inclines his will in pursuit of the su- 
pernatural, and gives him a taste for study. The 
zephyrs do not more gently communicate them- 
selves to his lungs, than this invisible something 
does to his soul, which whispers to him, in the 
language of hope, to study for the priesthood, and 
that success will crown his undertaking. His love 
of prayer, retirement, and his books, with a capa- 
city to learn, attract the attention of his parents 
and pastor, who conclude that, like Samuel of old, 
he is called by the Almighty to serve Him in His 
temple. The parents of this youth exercise a 
careful supervision over him till they place him in 
a seminary ; once there he is safe, because shut in 
from the allurements of the world ; once there he 
can with entire freedom gaze upon the rugged 
mountain he has to ascend before he can obtain 
his soul's desire. He attempts, like all ecclesiasti- 
cal, students to ascend this mountain ; but he 
cannot advance, because the bewildering maze of 
mathematical, physical, metaphysical, and theo- 
logical sciences dazzle his undeveloped intellect, 
as does the noonday sun his visual organs. These 
sciences appear to his mind so profound and dark 



The Hierarchy. 229 

that he concludes he can never acquire a knowl- 
edge of them, and therefore gives up his project 
in despair. The superior, who is a man of quick 
perception, divines the cause of the youth's de- 
spondency, and hence is not slow in apprising him 
of it. He tells him that all those who clambered 
up the rugged mountain of ecclesiastical science 
had to experience the same pangs that he did, 
were enveloped in the same gloom as he ; but that 
in lapse of time these pangs ceased and this gloom 
disappeared through the activity of their intellects 
which mastered these sciences. 

Through severe intellectual application and the 
instructions of efficient teachers he soon acquires 
a knowledge of those sciences requisite for the 
discharge of the duties of the holy state he aspires 
to, while good example and the practice of reli- 
gion sow in his heart the seeds of godliness. The 
severe discipline he undergoes, the constant fa- 
tigue incident to deep study for twelve or fourteen 
years, he looks upon as insignificant compared to 
the rich inheritance he is soon to be possessed of, 
and the sublime dignity to which he is about to be 
raised. This thought acting on his mind lightens 
his burden, assuages his pain, buoys up his droop- 
ing spirits, brightens his path, sweetens his dispo- 
sition, and saturates his soul with unspeakable de- 



230 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

lights, so that he is more a being of heaven than of 
earth. 

" His lovely presence shines so clear 
Through every sense and way, 
That those who once have seen him near 
See all things else decay. " 

At length the long-desired morning of his ordi- 
nation dawns ; and a glorious dawn it is for him, 
for before its close, through the imposition of 
hands, he will be made the Lord's anointed, the 
christ and prophet of God. On his shoulders will 
be placed a burden too onerous, too holy for an- 
gels to bear ; but, as the Holy Ghost is in him by 
His grace, with fear and trembling he consents to 
be ordained a priest of the Catholic Church. This 
future soldier of the cross, absorbed in familiar con- 
verse with the Holy Trinity, suffused in tears, not 
wrung from his heart pierced with arrows pointed 
with worldly sorrow, but flowing from the exuber- 
ance of unalloyed joy, is a loving spectacle to an- 
gels and men. If then his soul were to take flight 
aloft on angel's wings to its Creator, it would be 
admitted among the elect, because an aureole of 
glory formed by the practice of habitual grace 
crowned it. The pulsation of his heart he distinct- 
ly hears, whose every throb brings him nearer to 
his nuptials with the lovely, youthful daughter of 
Christ, the Catholic Church. In ecstasies of de- 
light he takes our Lord and His bitter chalice for 



The Hierarchy. 231 

his earthly inheritance, while he vows in the pres- 
ence of an unseen God to defend His Church as 
long as he lives. From the happy circumstances 
attending his ordination the chalice of the Lord 
appears to his imagination to contain sweets, but 
when he partakes of it the draught is bitter to his 
taste ; but sip it he must, for the servant is not above 
his Master. 

His ordination creates joy in his heart, in his 
family, in the seminar)^ in the Church militant, 
suffering, and triumphant. But hisjoy is of short 
duration, for his bishop has appointed him to a 
captaincy in the Church militant, and he must go 
to the front, in which there is most danger. Hav- 
ing arrived there, the first enemy he has to encoun- 
ter is a heterodox body composed of Episcopa- 
lians, Calvinists, Lutherans, Shakers, Quakers, 
Methodists, Baptists, Universalists, Baxterians, 
Come-outers, Southcotters, Congregationalists, 
Moravians or United Brethren, Presbyterians, 
Glory Band, Hallelujah Band, Christian Brethren, 
Christian Believers, Christian Mission, Christa- 
delphians, Free-Gospel Christians, Glassites, Dis- 
ciples of Christ, Jews, and a host of others who 
unfurl the banner of Protestantism and commence 
hostilities. While engaged in spiritual warfare 
with this collective body he finds out that it has 
not a well-defined religious existence, that its 



232 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

changes are as unceasing as its doctrines are false, 
and that its fundamental principle is, " Believe 
what you please ; it matters not what ramification 
of Protestantism you subscribe to, provided you 
malign the Romish Church and its priesthood." 
This medley of Protestantism further says to its 
members, " You must not be alarmed at my want 
of doctrinal unity ; you might as well expect that 
parallels could join as to expect unity out of con- 
trary principles. My unity consists in hatred of 
Rome and Romish priests, whom on all occasions 
you must ridicule, mock, and insult, as Cham did 
his father, the men of Phanuel, Gideon, and Mi- 
chol, David. You must ridicule the Pope, bish- 
ops, and priests ; this weapon is powerful against 
Rome and Romish priests, who are my greatest 
enemies. You must speak disparagingly of priests 
in presence of their people, in order to weaken 
their faith in their instructions and lessen their re- 
spect for them. By thus acting you do the work 
of God and help to expand His religion!' 

It is the observance of this advice that puts 
afloat the false assertion that " priests are no better 
than the laity, and in many respects inferior to 
some of them." It is the strict observance of this 
advice that puts in circulation the false charge 
that "the Church organized her priesthood for 
deceptive purposes." It is this that causes the 



The Hierarchy. 233 

priest to desire the wings of a dove to fly aloft to 
the unseen kingdom of his Master, in which ridi- 
cule will not be hurled at him. But he must not 
forget that he is a soldier of the cross, and there- 
fore must not be faint-hearted. He must be he- 
roic and employ the " sword of the Word/* 
by theological, logical, and historical reason- 
ing, against his enemies. He must use against 
them the science of faith, which is the most potent 
argument and convincing he can employ. If he 
do this, heterodoxy, at sea in his locality, will be 
submerged. 

The second body he has to encounter is com- 
posed of atheists, pantheists, and communists, who 
are harder to deal with than the former because 
they not only deny the divine source of revealed 
religion, but the existence of God. The term 
01 nanoi can be applied to this class because they 
are destructive of religion, truth, morality, and 
social order. As their to nav, their all in the uni- 
verse, is a product of matter acting on matter, they 
conclude that everything should be in common, 
and therefore they are kakoi. The priest they fear 
and ridicule more than any other man. Why do 
they ridicule a man who never did them an inju- 
ry ? Because he exposes the sophistry of their 
systems, made up of conjectures and mental aber- 
rations. Being impotent to persecute him physi- 



234 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

cally they have recourse to moral persecution, by 
the deduction of false inferences injurious to his 
character and standing in society, thus verifying 
the words of the Psalmist, Tota die verba mea 
abominabantur. Of these St. Augustin says, " It 
is even so ; speak, preach truth, announce Christ 
to the pagans, the Church to heretics, and salva- 
tion to all : they will contradict you and abominate 
your words." 

The third hostile body against whom the priest 
has to contend in the spiritual warfare of the 
Church is composed of " liberal Catholics." Of 
all his enemies these are the most dangerous, be- 
cause against those who vow open hostility to him 
he can guard, but not so well against these, who, 
in suave language, tell him " they are Catholics." 
They approach him, as Judas did Christ, with a 
kiss, while in their hearts they are ready to betray 
and persecute him. 

That liberal Catholics are the greatest enemies 
of the priesthood, is attested by the history of the 
Church for the last eighteen hundred years. 
What has induced their liberalism in religion? 
The love of the world, the non-practice of their 
religion, intermarriage with non-Catholics, and 
membership in secret societies. To this body the 
language of St. Augustin is applicable, who says. 
" There is a multitude of men, wicked and profli- 



The Hierarchy. 235 

gate, who turn their vices into custom and lose 
even their shame.'* 

The members who compose this " liberal " party 
are unscrupulous in trade, lax in morality, deceit- 
ful in friendship, slanderous in language, always 
ready to misconstrue whatever the priest may say 
condemnatory of their sinful course. With the 
faculties of soul and body they worship the mam- 
mon of this world, and fear neither God nor His 
justice, because their sickly, inoperative faith 
whispers softly into their minds that " God, who 
is the most kind and indulgent of fathers, will not 
judge them with severity." The good priest, true 
to the allegiance he bears to his divine Master, 
applies to them "the sword of the Word," but it 
is too sharp and penetrating, and instead of effect- 
ing a reformation in their conduct, it makes them 
more turbulent, intensifies the flux and reflux of 
their hatred towards him. Thenceforth, no mat- 
ter how careful and guarded he may be in his ser- 
mons, they misconstrue them, and conclude that 
they do not at all suit " a free people in a free 
country." If the priest preach against the errors 
of Protestantism, in their judgment " he is illib- 
eral and a fomenter of religious discord ;■" if 
against the public-school system of education, " he 
is the enemy of progress and liberal education ;" if 
against secret societies, " he is the enemy of be- 



236 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

nevolent associations which are as harmless in 
their workings as the Church ;" if he disburse the 
revenue of his church, " he is becoming rich on their 
money and therefore must be removed." Being 
well aware that the priest has no fixed tenure of 
his mission, they set to work to effect not only his 
removal but his ruin. Their leader — for such they 
have — calls a meeting to redress their imaginary 
grievances, which consist in the priest doing his 
duty. At this meeting a petition containing many 
counts detrimental to the character of the priest is 
drawn, and signed not only by these men but by 
children, which is sent to the bishop peremptorily 
demanding the removal of this priest. As this 
document is as inoperative in results as is their 
faith in good works, they hurl invectives at the 
bishop, whom they would treat, if they had the 
power, as Henry IV. of Germany did Gregory 
VII., as Napoleon I. did Pius VII., as Victor Em- 
manuel did Pius IX., and as Henry II. of England 
did St. Thomas a Becket. 

Petition after petition is sent to the bishop de- 
manding this priest's removal, who, to quiet 
things, is removed. Is anything gained by this? 
No. Why? Because the principle of external 
evil still continues to do its work, and therefore a 
hue and cry are raised against the next priest who 
is sent to these " liberal Catholics," " He, like his 



The Hierarchy. 237 

predecessor, is too severe on liberal Catholicity, 
on Protestantism, the public-school system of edu- 
cation, and therefore he must be removed/' Peti- 
tion after petition containing defamatory counts is 
sent to the bishop, who removes him to restore 
peace to the children of Cain ; but there is no 
peace for them. Non est pax impiis. They cannot 
have peace who insult the Author of peace and 
slander his anointed. 

The false charges preferred against priests by 
"liberal," priest-hunting Catholics are sought 
after, listened to, circulated, and affirmed by athe- 
ists and heretics, as criminal deeds, to the detri- 
ment of the sacerdotal character. These animals, 
rendered ferocious from the depravity of their na- 
ture and the absence of practical faith, through a 
spirit of hatred towards their innocent victim, not 
only heap imprecations on his head, but read a 
chapter of defamation to correspondents of semi- 
pagan newspapers, who, true to the base instincts of 
their calling, magnify it and render it attractive to 
minds that habitually feed on loathsome reading. 

Nowadays the financial prosperity of such news- 
papers depends upon their capacity to malign the 
Church and her hierarchy, and to accomplish this 
"liberal Catholics" are called upon to furnish 
items at the expense of some priest's character. 
These items, coming from so pure and Catholic a 



238 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

source, are accepted as true, and in this way slan- 
der has been propagated against the Lord's an- 
ointed; in this way conclusions have been de- 
duced that the Church organized a priesthood for 
deceptive purposes who are no better than any 
one else, but in many respects inferior. 

Are these priests, whom slander removed from 
congregations dear to them, the same fearless sol- 
diers of the cross they were when commissioned 
to wage spiritual war against the world ? They 
are not. Their zeal has become less fervent, and 
their courage has given way to cowardice, while 
melancholy reigns in their intellects. They fear 
to meet in open combat atheists, heretics, and lib- 
eral Catholics, who may let fly at them again the 
poisoned arrows of defamation. Many of them 
languish and fade away from the noxious breath 
of slander, as do tropical plants from that of frost. 
As their removal insinuated guilt, thenceforth 
many of them become indifferent as to what they 
do, and missionary life loses its attractions with 
the loss of their character, so that in the end they 
have to be dismissed from the sanctuary. 

But here it will be asked, Why did they not 
bear up under the false imputation with Christian 
fortitude? Why did not the Apostles watch with 
the Redeemer while in His agony He prayed on 
the Mount of Olivet ? Because the flesh is weak. 



The Hierarchy. 239 

Some with heroic fortitude did, while others less 
brave did not. 

That some ministers of our holy religion in 
every age of the Church forgot the sanctity of 
their station, and ceased to give light in the sanc- 
tuary, I grant, because true ; that some, who were 
the innocent victims of persecution, lost the spirit 
of their vocation and gave bad example, I grant, 
because equally true ; and that some entered the 
sanctuary without a vocation at all and gave great 
scandal cannot be denied. Now is it not unjust to 
condemn the collective body for the evil deeds 
done by some of its members? Does it follow 
that because one priest has given scandal, the body 
of which he is an unworthy or ex-member gave 
scandal too ? It does not. And yet the conduct 
of these unfortunate men, for whom there is up to 
this no refugium, although there is one for aged 
persons, fallen women, orphans, and illegitimate 
children, is time and again hurled in our face. 

Among the twelve apostles selected and schooled 
in holiness by the Redeemer there was a bad priest. 
Were the other eleven to be charged with the crime 
of this man ? Were the seven deacons ordained 
by the Apostles to be charged with the infamy of 
one of their number ? Among every twelve priests 
is there a Judas? Among every seven is there 
a Nicholas ? No, nor among every hundred. 



240 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

There never was on the earth a more sublime 
body than the priesthood ; there never existed a 
body of men so conspicuous for learning, so re- 
plenished with good works, so noted for disinter- 
estedness, so adorned with trophies gained over 
the world, as the priests of the Catholic Church. 
If we were to travel over the world and examine 
those nations inhabited by the children of Adam, 
we would find that the Catholic clergy are con- 
servers of society, supporters of just laws, anchors 
of safety to governments existing either de jure or 
de facto — provided de facto governments be founded 
on justice — opponents to royal oppression, protec- 
tors of virtue, and fathers to the poor. The gran- 
deur, glory, and brilliancy of this body have illu- 
mined and will illumine humanity so long as time 
shall exist. 

To enumerate the deeds of Christian heroism, 
charity, benevolence, and self-denial performed by 
this wonderful body, through supernatural mo- 
tives, on the battle-field, in localities afflicted with 
famine and pestilence, without any earthly re- 
ward, with nothing to cheer them, to lean upon or 
to protect them but the grace of God, is as impos- 
sible as to count the bodies rotating in stellar 
space. 

To attempt, then, to lower and blacken the char- 
acter of the Catholic priesthood through hatred 



The Hierarchy. 241 

to God and revealed religion is to sin against 
truth, justice, and charity. Truth demands that 
we must not bear false witness against our neigh- 
bor ; justice, that we must not injure him in his 
goods and reputation ; charity, that we must assist 
him in his wants, and love him as we do ourselves. 
It is a principle of the natural law that we must 
not do to our neighbor what we would not want 
him to do to us. If this were observed there 
would be no cause of complaint, but, owing to its 
/z<?/z-observance, in many cases character is too 
often shipwrecked by heartless creatures called 
" liberal Catholics/' heretics, atheists, pantheists, 
and communists. 



CHAPTER X. 

ARE THE CEREMONIES OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 
INCENTIVES TO IDOLATRY? 

We have already seen that the heretics Luther, 
Calvin, Knox, and Latimer, in their attempt to 
destroy the Catholic Church, whose ceremonies 
scandalized them, severed the connection existing 
between true religion and every-day life, by the 
formation of what they considered a purely spirit- 
ual religion, entirely denuded of ceremonial forms. 
In their effort to accomplish this, they left to their 
followers, instead of a vital religion, incongruous 
opinions divorced from God, sound reason, and 
pure science. So soon as this medley appeared, it 
assumed a gloomy aspect, a sanctimonious exterior, 
which saw evil in the ceremonies of the Church. 
This establishment, stripped of every essential and 
non-essential form with which the true Church is 
clothed, and deprived of every vital principle im- 
parted to it by its divine Founder, asserts that 
"it alone is spiritual" because, like Adam after 
his fall, it is naked and devoid of spiritual life, 
" while the religion of Christ is one of forms, and 
therefore is corrupt." The progeny of Protes- 



Ceremonies of the Church. 243 

tantism have improved upon this " therefore" by 
the deduction of another, equally absurd ; name- 
ly, " that the ceremonies of the Church tend to- 
wards idolatry." If my atheistic philosophers 
imagined that they saw something in the ceremo- 
nies of the Church which was an incentive to 
idolatry, they ought to be the last persons on 
earth to charge this, because they themselves wor- 
ship brute matter, inasmuch as they endow it with 
eternal being, and make it the efficient cause of 
the universe. 

Protestantism and atheism, to be consistent, 
should do away with social intercourse between 
man and man, with knowledge received through 
the senses, with eloquence, music, poetry, and 
painting, which are forms that excite to love or 
hatred. 

The nature of the Church founded by our Lord, 
her doctrine, hierarchy, constitution, laws, and 
discipline, demanded ceremony. As she was to 
expand herself throughout the world and preach 
salvation to all men, she had to communicate the 
glad tidings of redemption to them in their lan- 
guages; teach her dogmas to them by sensible 
signs ; administer the sacraments to them by sen- 
sible forms, and offer to God the unbloody Sacra- 
fice of Calvary with solemn and majestic pomp. 

As man is a rational being, who has a nature in 



244 ^ Catholic Priest mid Scientists. 

common with the invisible kingdom, his heart is 
capable of being filled with the love of his Creator, 
which he could not restrain within him, without 
external manifestation. It follows, therefore, that 
since he is filled with divine love he must manifest it 
by loving his neighbors, who, in turn, love others 
or transmit it to others, that the same sentiments 
may be shared in by all, and thus propagate by 
external exhibition the inward feeling they ex- 
perience. 

If these men were blessed with divine faith, in- 
stead of arriving at so unreasonable a conclusion, 
they would see and admire the beauty, unction, 
and impressiveness of the ceremonies used by the 
Church, which can be felt but not well defined ; 
for, like the mysterious daughter of the great king, 
their beauty is ab intus, and therefore is not seen 
by those who are supernaturally blind. The 
ceremonies used by the Church enter the hearts 
of the faithful, touch them with unction, and direct 
their minds to a contemplation of the glory of an 
unseen God and His kingdom which will be theirs 
by virtue of their practical faith. 

The Catholic Church, from the ascent of our 
Lord into heaven, used ceremony in her holy 
functions, and will to the end of time. The sym- 
bolism ol ceremonies, from the light ol faith, is 
intelligible but difficult to define, as I said before, 



Ceremonies of the Church. 245 

because it is an expression of filial confidence and 
love in and for God explicitly manifested through 
sighs, tears, and actions during divine service in 
the Church. Through symbolism that which is 
sensible is seen by the bodily eye, while the in- 
sensible and spiritual are apprehended by the 
mind. 

The term ceremony is derived from the Latin 
word cceremonia, which signifies an act clothed 
with awe, reverence, and veneration, and is itself 
of no importance, except inasmuch as it is a me- 
dium to excite the mind to a contemplation of the 
supernatural. The Church, through her ceremo- 
nies, instructs her children in the mysteries of their 
faith, as she does by the pictures of the Redeemer 
and saints suspended from her walls. 

Now, as man, to obtain his ultimate end, must 
worship God in spirit and truth, external worship 
is necessary that he accomplish this. Being, as 
before stated, a rational creature, his nature de- 
mands that, whatever elates or depresses him, it 
be exteriorly manifested ; this cannot be denied, 
because the presence of joy or sorrow acting on 
his soul, will be manifested on his countenance and 
in his actions ; but as human joy or sorrow require 
an outlet, so too do spiritual. As it is with the 
individual, so is it with the Church. She too re- 
quires an outlet to express her joy or sorrow, when 



246 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

she beholds her divine Founder immolated in an 
unbloody manner upon her altars for the living 
and dead, or when she sees Him insulted by those 
for whom He died. These joyful and sorrowful 
expressions manifested by the Church clothed in 
liturgical and rubrical garments we call ceremo- 
nies. 

When God created man He used ceremony, for 
He formed his body from pre-existing earth, and 
breathed into it a living soul ; when He cast Adam 
out of paradise He used ceremony. He Himself 
prescribed the ceremonies of the Old Law, which 
were typical of those of the New. The Redeemer, 
when He anointed the eyes of the man born 
blind, used ceremony, for He made anointment 
out of clay and spittle. When He wrote on the 
ground for him who was free to cast the first 
stone at the woman charged with adultery, He 
used ceremony. When He wept over Jerusalem, 
which was a figure of the liberal Catholic, He 
used ceremony, for He manifested intense grief. 
When He raised Lazarus and the widow's son to 
life, who were figures of the hardened and relaps- 
ing sinners, He used ceremony. When He multi- 
plied the loaves and fishes, walked upon the sea, 
commanded the sea and winds to be still, changed 
water into wine, bread and wine into His body 
and blood, asked His Father if He had forsaken 



Ceremonies of the Church. 247 

him, recommended His Mother to St. John, and 
commissioned His Apostles to preach the Gospel, 
He used ceremony. From what has been said, it 
is self-evident that in the ceremonies of the Church 
divinely officiating through her ministers there is 
nothing that tends to promote idolatry, but every- 
thing to manifest mystic signification which helps 
to imprint on the intellects of her children the deep 
and sublime mysteries of their holy faith. 

The same can be said of every article worn by 
the priest while immolating the Holy of holies, or 
performing any other function of his sacred office. 
The alb the priest wears while celebrating Mass, 
denotes the purity of intention and life, required 
of him by the Almighty, while the unguium, or 
cord, symbolizes continence. The stole which he 
places around his neck is emblematic of the spiri- 
tual authority delegated to him over his congre- 
gation, and the obedience he owes to his bishop, 
while the chasuble indicates the sea of charity he 
must exercise towards his fellow-creatures. The 
cross on the front and rear of the chasuble reminds 
him that he is placed between God and His 
people to reconcile the Former to the latter. The 
color of the sacred vestments used in the holy 
Sacrifice of the Mass has a mystic signification 
also. White is used on Festivals of the Redeemer, 
of the Blessed Virgin, and those saints who did 



248 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

not suffer martyrdom. Red is used on Whitsun- 
day, and on the Feasts of the Apostles and martyrs. 
Purple or Violet is used on Sundays and ferial days 
of Advent, and from Septuagesima Sunday until 
Easter. Black is used on Good Friday and when- 
ever Mass oi Requiem is said for the repose of the 
souls of the faithful departed. The vestments 
worn by the priest while celebrating Mass sym- 
bolize, also, the derisive garments with which the 
Jews clothed our Lord prior to His crucifixion. 
The altar represents Mount Calvary, or the cross 
on which the Lord suffered for man's redemption ; 
the chalice, the sepulchre in which the lifeless body 
of Christ was entombed ; the corporal, the linen in 
which His sacred body was wrapped ; while the 
patena is a symbol of the stone that closed the en- 
trance to the sepulchre. Flowers are placed on 
the altar for ornament, while the lights that burn 
on it are symbolical of uncreated Light, who came 
into this world to enlighten those who sat in the 
shadows of death. Lights, also, on the altar sym- 
bolize divine faith ; for as physical objects are per- 
ceptible through the medium of material light, so 
are spiritual things apprehended by the light of 
faith. 

The Latin word missa is of great antiquity, 
Some writers say this word is derived from the 
Hebrew word missah, whose root is the word mas. 



Ceremonies of the Church. 249 

By referring to the sixteenth chapter of Deutero- 
nomy, it will be seen that the words missah nedaba 
are employed to express sacrificial offerings. 
Others say that the word is derived from missio, 
which signifies that the people are sent away after 
sacrifice has been offered to God. According to 
St. Augustin* and St. Ambrose,f the word missa 
was used to designate in the fourth century the 
unbloody Sacrifice of the altar. Without investi- 
gating its source any further, it is the unbloody 
Sacrifice of Calvary, a renewal or a continuation 
of the Sacrifice of Mount Calvary in an unbloody 
manner. 

The Gloria and Credo are sometimes said aloud 
and in secret. The Gloria was first sung by the 
angels when the Son of God was born in a stable 
in Bethlehem, and, from the dawn of Christianity, 
was chanted by the faithful to give praise to God. 
The Credo is intoned to profess faith in the divin- 
ity of our Lord and the divine origin of His holy 
religion. Corde creditur ad justitiam, ere autem con- 
fessiofit ad salutem. The Gloria and Credo are sung 
by the choir, to praise God and edify the congre- 
gation, and to impress on their intellects that all 
those who sing the praises of God in time, stran- 
gers to sin, will sing His praises in eternity in the 

*Ep. ad. Marcel. fSerm. xci. de Tempore. 



250 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

company of angels. The Epistle is read to instruct 
those who assist at Mass in their duty to God and 
their neighbor ; the Gospel, to inform them that the 
Light of lights came into the world to illumine 
the Gentiles. The sacred Host is elevated, that 
the devout worshippers may offer supreme adora- 
tion to an unseen God, abiding under the sacra- 
mental veils. Here silence reigns supreme, and 
oh what rapture, what joy, in that sweet, holy si- 
lence during which the world is forgotten ! Oh 
thrice-deep, awful silence, during which an incar- 
nate God speaks to the hearts of His children in 
accents of affection, and grants whatever they ask 
conducive to their salvation ! After the elevation 
the priest puts incense into the censer, which he 
waves over the sacred Host and Chalice, to sym- 
bolize the offering of prayer made by the devout 
worshippers to God during the holy Sacrifice. 
That the use of incense is of great antiquity in 
divine service and sacrificial offerings we learn 
from Leviticus (ii. 1), which states that it was com- 
manded that incense be placed on minch, the sacri- 
fice. David says, " Let my prayer, O Lord, like 
incense ascend in Thy sight." * St. John says, 
"The four and twenty elders and the angels offer 
to God odors and incense, which are the prayers of 
the saints." \ Incense also symbolizes virtue and 

* Ps. cxl. f Rev. v. 8. 



Ceremonies of the Church. 251 

charity, which flood the soul with delicious fra- 
grance. Incense is used in whatever relates to 
divine service and God, and hence the missal, the 
altar, crucifix, and people are incensed by the 
priest or deacon. During these moments, while 
the Son of God is present on the altar, the human 
intellect, illumined by the light of faith, can pic- 
ture to itself legions of pure spirits within the holy 
temple who fill their invisible censers with the 
prayers of the congregation, and wave them be- 
fore the " Word made flesh" as an offering paid to 
Him by souls that profess faith in His sacramental 
presence. 

Whilst the holy Sacrifice is being offered in the 
Church to God there is no recognition of title, no 
princely honor, paid to any one present ; all are 
equal, being children of Adam, sinners redeemed 
by the blood of God, who, prostrate in the dust, 
unite with the priest absorbed in his awful work, 
who too is a sinner, and only a visible instrument 
in the hands of the " Word made flesh," and who 
says with the kneeling multitude, Domine non sum 
dignus. In the worshipping congregation, of dif- 
ferent languages and of every walk in life, can be 
seen the wonderful unity of Catholic faith, who 
gaze with love and awe on the unbloody Victim 
who will soon enter their hearts, either by an act 
of desire or sacramentally, to bestow on them the 



252 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

choicest gifts of heaven. The holy Sacrifice is 
consummated, and Communion given to virgins 
(it is first-communion day) robed in white, who 
are a lively figure of the spotless virgins that 
surround the throne of the Lamb and chant His 
praise. The God-man has been immolated in an 
unbloody manner, and offered to His eternal 
Father for the living and dead, and oh how holy, 
solemn, and heavenly the offering was ! Its gran- 
deur, beauty, and holiness flood the human heart 
with emotions like to those which filled the souls 
of the three Apostles who witnessed His Trans- 
figuration. This most holy and sublime offering 
breathes the soft whisperings of grace into our 
souls, as did the heavenly discourse of the Re- 
deemer into the hearts of the two disciples at 
Emmaus, who constrained Him to remain with 
them. Mane nobiscum Domine, qtioniam avesperescit. 
As good, practical Catholics are fully aware 
that the forms of worship used by the Church are 
approved by the Almighty, they can afford to 
bear the ridicule of atheists and heretics, who may 
continue till the crack of doomsday to sneer at 
the ceremonies of the Church, and to laud their 
materialistic systems and supra-refined spiritual 
religions, devoid of unity and sanctity, and entire- 
ly denuded of forms. 



CHAPTER XL 

IS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH THE ENEMY OF SCI- 
ENCE ? DID SHE IMPRISON GALILEO? 

It is strange indeed that educated men would 
so far commit themselves as to assert that " the 
Catholic Church is the enemy of science." On 
what they based this assertion I am at a loss to 
know, for everything in the Church marks her 
marvellous progress in true science since the days 
of the Apostles. The intellectual activity of her 
members is as progressive in this age as in any of 
her history. In this century she can boast of her 
theologians, metapyhsicians, philosophers, physi- 
cists, mathematicians, and historians as second to 
none outside her fold, for acumen and accuracy. 
In this country she has in her sanctuary grand lit- 
erary lights who would reflect honor on civilized 
society in any age of the world. There are at 
least six of our bishops and twelve of our priests 
whom I could name, who, for high literary attain- 
ments and general knowledge, have no superiors, 
while the others are well educated. Many, very 



254 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

many of the Catholic laity in this country, are 
noted for superior ability in journalism, law, med- 
icine, and politics, while those who are not versed 
in these cannot be classified among the ignorant, 
because no systematized branch of human science 
can equal their faith, which is the most sublime 
and grand product of human knowledge. Then 
on what is the assertion based? On the assumed 
fact that the Church imprisoned Galileo. But, 
for sake of argument, I will grant that she did im- 
prison him. Does it follow from this that she is 
the enemy of science ? It does not. It might as 
well be said that because she condemned the 
Manichsean, Socinian, Lutheran, and Anglican her- 
esies she was the enemy of Christianity. The 
Church is no more the enemy of science — true, 
genuine science — than she is of the roseate dawn 
that heralds the sun's rising. 

That the Catholic Church, in every age of her 
history, has been the friend and patroness of natu- 
ral and supernatural science, every candid, edu- 
cated man must confess ; that those scientific re- 
sults which elevate and ennoble the human mind 
are traceable to her he must confess also. Since 
she was built, sustained, and enlivened by eternal 
Science — God — she could not be the enemy of 
what He loves; but as He wills that all men 
come to a knowledge of Him and be saved, it fol- 



The Catholic Church and Science. 255 

lows, from the inherent attributes of truth, that 
since His Church entertains the same desire, 
therefore she is not the enemy of science. It is 
not in the nature of things that the Church, which 
was commissioned to teach all nations by Eternal 
Science, is the enemy of science. Of the sophistry 
of men who know neither themselves, Christianity, 
nor God she is the enemy. Of the vaporous 
vagaries of intellects steeped in wilful error she is 
the enemy, as was her divine Founder. If she 
promoted the growth of error and did not teach 
her children how to fly to God on the wings of 
contemplation, she would not be the pillar and 
ground of truth, but of this world. Knowledge is 
wisdom when employed in the love of God ; it is 
science when accompanied by or incorporated in 
truth. If it be not accompanied by truth, it has no 
semblance to eternal reason, but is of him who 
told Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit. 

Now, I ask my scientists, whose habits of mind 
are so very deductive, who or what based on a 
moral, religious, and equitable foundation the 
kingdoms of Europe which were formed out of 
the defunct Roman Empire? Was it atheism, 
pantheism, communism, or the heterogeneous ele- 
ments which formed the varieties of heresy? 
No; it was the Catholic Church. Who taught 
those northern barbarians that dismembered this 



256 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

vast empire and parcelled it among themselves, 
letters, religion, the science of civil and ecclesi- 
astical law ? The Catholic Church. Who taught 
them to respect woman and those rights implanted 
in man's nature by his Creator? The Catholic 
Church. Who saved the works of pagan writers 
and the Holy Scriptures from the general ruin 
that accompanied this period of the world's his- 
tory? The Catholic Church. How, then, can 
any man be so insensate as to assert that she is the 
enemy of science, whose dogmas are apprehended 
only through divine science? How, then, can a 
man be so irrational as to affirm that the Church, 
which is clothed with the sun and has the moon 
beneath her feet, is the enemy of science, whose 
vital Principle is Eternal Science? Can it be 
possible that a Church which produced the bold 
and easy writer, St. Clemens Alexandrinus, and 
the saintly Apollinarius, bishop of Laodicea, who 
formed the writings of the Apostles and Evangel- 
ists into dialogues after the style of Plato, is the 
enemy of science? Can it be possible that the 
Church which produced such great literary lights 
as Saints Ignatius, Justin, Hilary, Ephrem, Cyril 
of Jerusalem, Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Jerome, 
Augustin, and Thomas Aquinas is the enemy of 
science? Can it be possible that the Church 
which produced St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, 



The Catholic Church and Science. 257 

Vincent de Beauvais, Roger Bacon, Maldonatus, 
Cornelius a Lapide, Albertus Magnus, Father 
Perone, Cardinals Mazzofanti and Wiseman, 
Bishops England, Hughes and Kenrick, and thou- 
sands of other great intellects who have gone to 
eternal rest, is the enemy of science ? No. It is 
not in the nature of things. The charge is noth- 
ing more than the false judgment of the negative 
unity of atheism and heresy. Judicium est stultorum 
et iniquiorum. 

What but the inspiration of divine science 
directed the intellects of the great musical com- 
posers Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Palestrina, 
Kelcher, Liszt, and Weber to compose figured 
music, equal in soft, rich melody and sublimity to 
Gregorian chant? What but the intrinsic beauty 
of the Church and the glory of the unseen king- 
dom, to which she directs the intellects of her 
members, imparted sublimity to the paintings of 
Raphael and Michael Angelo? 

Whatever of truth, beauty, and sublimity one 
finds in literature ; whatever harmony, pathos, and 
grandeur one finds in music ; whatever delicacy, 
chasteness, and elevation of thought one finds in 
painting and sculpture, owe their primary con- 
ception and inspiration to Catholics who loved 
and obeyed the Church, from a conviction that she 
was of God, and therefore could not be hostile to 



2 $8 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

anything that tended to give the human mind a 
useful expansion. 

Did the Church deprive Galileo of his liberty? 
Not any more than she did the sun of its light. 
From what I can learn from the life of this man 
written by an impartial writer, his great mathe- 
matical and astronomical mind created jealousy 
in the minds of lesser lights, and consequent hos- 
tility to him. This every great intellect experi- 
enced, before and since his day. The frequent 
sneers he had to endure from those who ought 
to befriend and encourage him, gave his mind a 
carping, cynical tendency, which placed him 
always in difficulties, more than his physical dis- 
coveries did. In attempting to prove his system 
from the Bible, as Copernicus did before him, 
he attracted the attention of the Church's digni- 
taries, who told him, in language the most friendly, 
to be prudent ; that the question was an open one 
and was not a dogma of faith. Galileo, who, like 
Copernicus, was a poor theologian, felt insulted at 
this reprimand, and to be revenged on his pre- 
sumed enemies, wrote a work in the form of a dia- 
logue between three dialogists, one of whom was 
in favor of the Copernican system, the other a 
supporter of the Ptolemaic, and the third of the 
Aristotelian. As might be expected, the force of 
argument inclined towards the Copernican sys- 



The Catholic Church and Science. 259 

tern, which was not well received, owing to the 
novelties it inculcated. His restless mind pro- 
duced another dialogue, in which he shamefully 
attacked Pope Urban under the fictitious person- 
age of " Simplicio,' ' as one who cared little for 
scientific truth. The Holy Father, from His ex- 
alted position, and from the false count contained 
in the indictment, handed the cynical scientist over 
to the Roman inquisitors. Whilst the trial was 
pending he was not imprisoned in a dreary dun- 
geon, but was placed in the palace of Tuscany, in 
which he occupied the apartments of the attorney- 
general, and was allowed to see and correspond 
with his friends. The inquisitors did not call him 
to an account for his astronomical research by 
means of his own telescope, nor for his discovery 
of the four satellites of the planet Jupiter, nor for 
his theorem that " all bodies descend with equal 
velocity, " but for imputing to the Bible the scientific 
dogma of his own inventions, and for offering insult 
to the visible head of the Church.* 

* On this, see Bergier's Diction, de theol. art. Du Monde et 
Science. See, also, Sir David Brewster in Lardner's Cabinet 
Cyclopedia, and the Life of Galileo by Viviani. 



CHAPTER XII. 

IS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH THE ENEMY OF CIVIL 
LIBERTY ? DID SHE SANCTION OR PROMOTE THE 
MASSACRE OF THE HUGUENOTS ON ST. BARTHOL- 
OMEW'S DAY? 

The Church could not any more be the enemy of 
civil liberty than she could be of science. The 
count in the indictment is false, certainly. This her 
whole history proves ; that she has been always 
the friend and promoter of civil liberty is the tes- 
timony of truthful history. And here it may not 
be amiss to define the term " liberty/' in order to 
understand its proper meaning. Liberty in the 
individual is the power to think as he pleases. 
For the activity of thought, no matter how adverse 
it may be to religion, truth, moral and social order, 
he cannot be called to an account by any person, 
except by the Almighty, who alone can peer into 
the soul, the seat of thought. But when his 
thoughts are expressed in language, accompanied 
or non-accompanied by actions antagonistic to re- 
ligion, truth, morals, and social order, then religion 



The Catholic Church and Civil Liberty. 261 

and social order have a right to call him to an 
account. 

Liberty, in a Christian acceptation of the word, 
consists in obeying civil law based on justice, 
ecclesiastical law on tradition and the pure 
Word of God ; in submitting the intellect to what- 
ever is true, and the will to whatever is good and 
virtuous. Liberty other than this is chimerical, 
and therefore is the worst kind of slavery — that 
of sin. Against imaginary liberty which crept 
into the religious, moral, truthful, political, and 
social order, the Church had to battle for the last 
eighteen hundred years of her eventful life. As 
her children were those of every country and 
language, of every order of society, she had to 
protect them in the enjoyment of their natural 
and supernatural rights, and at the same time 
define to them in what true and false liberty con- 
sisted. The discharge of this duty, which was 
the command her visible head received from 
her divine Founder, entailed on her untold perse- 
cution. 

Her opposition to the false liberty entertained 
by the tyrants Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus 
Aurelius, Septimius Severus, Maximinus, Tracian, 
Valerian, Aurelian, Galerius, Dioclesian, Licinius, 
Julian the Apostate, Hunneric, and Thrasimund 
baptized her, ten thousand times, in blood. The 



262 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

cruel persecution she underwent from these royal 
demons is revolting to the instincts of humanity. 
But these monsters were pagans. It matters not ; 
the devil does his work through so-called Chris- 
tians as well as through pagans. Were not Henry 
IV. and Henry V. of Germany, Henry VIII., 
Elizabeth, and Cromwell of England, Napoleon I. 
of France, so-called Christians, and yet, to enforce 
their pernicious ideas of religious, moral, and 
political liberty, they poured a sea of molten per- 
secution on the Church ? This ambitious, giddy 
Frenchman, Napoleon I., after his defeat in Russia, 
would not copy Henry VIII., by declaring him- 
self head of the Church, but adopted a plan less 
absurd and revolting; namely, to govern the 
Church through the Pope. In this he failed. He 
fell, while the Church still stands and Pius VII. is 
gone to the enjoyment of eternal bliss. Henry, 
Elizabeth, and Cromwell are gone to receive their 
merits, while the Church still stands, and England 
is again becoming Catholic. 

Now, in the language of common-sense, how 
could the Church which suffered so much in sow- 
ing the seed of civilization throughout the world 
be the enemy of civil liberty ? How could the 
Church which preached truth, morality, honesty, 
forgiveness of injury, and obedience to lawful 
authority be the enemy of civil liberty ? What but 



The Massacre of St. Bartholomew s Day. 263 

the Church rescued pagan nations from their idol- 
atrous worship? What but the Church drove 
Mohammedanism from Europe back to Asia and 
Africa ? Only for the Catholic Church we would 
to-day have to salute the Crescent instead of the 
Stars and Stripes in this country. Why, then, un- 
justly charge the Church with hostility to civil 
liberty ? Why were not my disputants consistent 
with truth and history ? 

But she sanctioned and promoted the massacre 
of the Huguenots'* on St. Bartholomew's Day. Is 
this historically true ? Not one word of it. The 
turbulent, insolent Huguenots, or French Calvin- 
ists, under the pretext of reviving the Apostolic 
Age, were guilty of many and great excesses. 
In their delirious zeal for the propagation of their 
obnoxious tenets, subversive of civil and religious 
order, they commenced to extirpate Catholicity, 
which they called idolatry, out of France ; to 
overturn altars, destroy churches and private resi- 
dences.f The terrible tempest of their violence 
laid waste Gargean, Pluviers, Estampes, and Pon- 
thoise4 In the diocese of Soissons " they massa- 

* The name Huguenots was given in France to those who ad- 
hered to the Reformation. 

f Vide Premier Avertissements des Catholiques Anglois aux 
Francois Catholiques, pp. 56-70. 

% Ubi sup. p. 102. 



264 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

cred two thousand seven hundred and twenty- 
three, amongst whom were twenty -five priests and 
twenty-two monks."* This fanatical body ac- 
knowledged that they "put to death more than 
forty thousand priests in France." f " One Sunday 
witnessed the plunder and devastation, by these 
armed fanatics, of thirty-six parish churches in 
Rouen alone, without speaking of the monasteries 
from which the poor defenceless monks were 
driven by brutal force." % De Bourqueville says, 
" The Huguenots perpetrated acts too infamous to 
be named." § 

In the year 1561 this body of modern "saints" 
commanded Charles IX. and the Regent Catherine 
de Medici, to tear down from the walls of 
churches the images of the Redeemer, the Virgin, 
and saints. " On the 1st of March, A.D. 1562, the 
Duke of Guise, with his followers, while assisting 
at Mass on a Sunday, in the town of Vassy, was 
very much annoyed with the repeated shouting, 
screaming, exhorting, and singing of a Calvinistic 
congregation who were holding service not far 
distant from the Catholic church. The Duke 



* Hist, de Soissons, torn. ii. 

f Avertissement des Catholiques, pp. 116-118. 

% Floquet, Hist, des Parlement de Norm. torn, ii et iii. 

§ Ubi sup. torn iii. p. 62. 



The Massacre of St. Bartholomew s Day. 265 

sent some of his attendants to request them to be 
less boisterous for a few minutes ; but to this they 
would not consent. A war of words commenced, 
which very soon turned to blows. The Duke, 
hearing the tumult grow louder and fiercer, went 
to pacify the angry combatants, and was felled 
to the earth. His followers, seeing him covered 
with blood, became enraged, rushed on the Hu- 
guenots and killed some fifty of them/** This 
statement is verbatim, historical. The words are 
not mine. 

This sad affair, which was purely accidental, 
and might have happened in any other country 
during those stormy times, spread over France 
with lightning speed, and drove the Huguenots 
into open rebellion, under the leadership of Louis 
L, Prince of Bourbon-Conde. " The insurgents 
took possession of Lyons, Rouen, Orleans, and 
Tours, which they devastated with more than 
Vandal deviltry. They plundered the churches, 
tore down altars and paintings of saints, carried 
away and melted the sacred vessels, burned the 
relics of saints, broke open the tomb of St. Martin 
and cast his ashes to the winds. "f 



* Floquet, torn. iii. pp. 139, 293 et passim, 
f Ubi sup. 



266 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

" Although the Calvinists laid waste two thirds 
of France, yet they were not content. They want- 
ed the reins of government, and to accomplish 
this formed a plot to assassinate the young king 
and his mother during the festivities consequent 
upon the marriage of his sister with the King of 
Navarre. Upon the detection of the plot, a Royal 
Council was held in which Catherine said, That, 
to avert the evils which threaten the civil and religious 
life of the nation, Coligny should be put to death ; 
that with his death the lawless deeds of the Huguenots 
would cease. After these words were uttered, 
Charles said, " Since you conclude to kill the 
admiral, be it so; but let all the Huguenots in 
France perish with hint, that none be left to reproach 
me with his death." * At two o'clock on the morn- 
ing of St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24, 1572, 
the deed of bloodshed was perpetrated. "A 
courier was immediately sent to Rome, who in- 
formed Gregory XIII. that the young king 
escaped a fearful death by the detection of a con- 
spiracy against his life. Cardinal Lorraine, who 
was then in Rome, asked the Pope's permission to 
have a Te Deum chanted, as a thanksgiving to 
God for the safety of the young king. As soon 
as the Pope received the truthful details of the 

* Floquet, torn. iii. pp. 139, 293 et passim. 



The Massacre of St. Bartholomew s Day. 267 

massacre, he showed his horror of the dreadful 
deed by letters condemnatory of it to Charles and 
Catherine."* 

Now, was the language of blood, used by this 
young man at a Royal Council, the language of 
the Church ? Were Charles and his mother the 
Church? Were those who committed the deed 
the Church ? Was France the Catholic Church ? 
No. Then it follows that the bloody deed can- 
not be imputed to the Church. " But the per- 
petrators were Catholics." What then? Does 
it follow that the Church must be held respon- 
sible for the actions of Catholics? Not at all. 
Was not Henry VIII. a Catholic, and he defied 
God and the Pope, robbed the Church, perse- 
cuted her, shed her blood, and banished her out 
of England? Was not Henry IV. of Germany 
a Catholic, and from his acts of diabolism was 
looked upon by all Europe as antichrist? Was 
not Napoleon I. a Catholic, and he imprisoned 
the Pope ? Was not Victor Emmanuel a Catho- 
lic, and he plundered the Church? To hold the 
Church responsible for the deeds of liberal or 
apostate Catholics, is as unjust as to hang a 
man for the murder his neighbor committed. 
The greatest enemies the Church has to-day are 

* Vide Caveirac, Hist, du France ad arm, 1582. 



268 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

liberal and apostate Catholics, who, even with the 
assistance of atheism, cannot deprive her of the 
radiant crown, placed on her brow by her divine 
Founder, and guarded by the Holy Spirit, any 
more than they can the sun of the photosphere 
that envelops his disk. So long as time shall 
exist, within her will be found pure intelligence, 
the true life and rest of man. 



CONCLUSION. 

The controversy has come to an end. My sci- 
entists, having spent their force, are unwilling 
to hurl any more objections at Catholicity and its 
divine Founder. As it has come to an end, so 
will all things in the visible world. Ah, what 
anxious thoughts this should awaken in our souls ! 
Although we are blessed with true religion and its 
practice, and although we are familiar with natu- 
ral and supernatural science, yet we must fear the 
end that awaits us, because we have no certainty 
whether we are worthy of love or hatred. True 
indeed, as all things in this material world had a 
beginning, they must cease to be. Where are the 
generations that succeeded each other as ocean 
wave on wave, since the dawn of man's creation ? 
They have been carried on the wings of death 
from time to an endless eternity. Where are those 
crowned tyrants, Pharao, Nero, Julian the Apos- 
tate, Henry VIII., Elizabeth, Cromwell, and Napo- 
leon I., who persecuted humanity to acquire fame 
and sordid gain? Eternity has swallowed them 
up. Where are those empires founded on injus- 
tice, baptized in blood, and fed by spoliation? 



270 A Catholic Priest and Scientists. 

They have crumbled into dust, while their 
founders' names are mentioned in history only to 
be detested. Where are all those who denied the 
existence of God, who persecuted the Church, and 
those who gave existence to the heterogeneous 
elements of heresy ? They were carried down the 
river of time into the boundless, unfathomable 
ocean of eternity, never to be heard from on this 
earth. All contingent entities, then, in the uni- 
verse will cease to be. Yes ; the sun which shed 
his golden radiance on hill and vale, on laughing 
river and embowered foliage, since Almighty 
Power formed and poised it in space, will sink to 
rest on the bosom of the western deep, never 
again to decorate an eastern sky with roseate 
smiles. Those ponderous bodies called stars, 
will cease to cast their soft light on the earth, 
while the dome of heaven, without a lustrous body, 
will return to chaos. The universe will be stripped 
of its luminous and reflecting bodies by that 
omnipotent fiat that formed them out of chaotic 
matter and be reduced, with them, to that deep 
gloom out of which the creative act brought light. 
When the death-knell of time shall sound, will 
man share the fate of inanimate bodies and irra- 
tional creatures? No; being made after the 
image of God, he will live forever. For human- 
ity there are two eternities : the one bright, the 



Conclusion. 2 7 1 

other dark ; the one of eternal bliss, the other of 
eternal woe. An eternity of everlasting darkness 
and woe, of inconceivable pain and torture, awaits 
those who, like the children of Edom and Cain, 
and like the daughters of Babylon, followed the 
concupiscence of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and 
the pride of life, and died in their sins, while for 
those whose divine faith was operative, whose in- 
tellects were submitted to truth, and whose wills 
pursued what was good and moral, there is one of 
inconceivable glory and happiness. 

I implore, then, all those outside the one fold 
to divest their minds of pride and prejudice, and 
apply them to a candid examination of revealed 
religion. If they do, God, I hope, will reward 
their efforts by imparting to them the gift of divine 
faith, by the light of which they will see the glory 
and beauty of true religion, and the foam of infi- 
delity that floated on their intellects, and so long 
shut out from their souls the radiant glare of 
Catholicity. That the angels and saints of heaven 
may obtain for them this inestimable gift, by which 
they can know, love, and serve the triune Deity 
who unites the visible with the invisible world 
and sustains both by His conserving energy, is the 
blessing I wish them. 

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8vo, cloth. $3.00. 



A History of the Catholic Church 

of Pittsburg and Allegheny, from its Establishment 
Time. By Rev. A. A. Lambing. 8vo, cloth, $3.00. 



in the Diocese of Pittsburg and Allegheny, from its Establishment to the Present 



BENZIGER BROTHERS, New York, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. 



ilT6 



